GEORGE  HOLMES  HOWISON 


THE    PARDONER'S    WALLET 


SAMUEL  McCHORD  CROTHERS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOllGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

MCMX 


COPYRIGHT   1905   BY   SAMUEL   MCCHORD   CROTHKRS 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Published  November  1905 


TO  KATHARINE 

WITH    WHOM    THESE    THINGS    HAVE 
BEEN    TALKED    OVER 


851 165 


PREFACE 
(•Ml 

THERE  is  a  well-grounded  prejudice  against 
a  volume  which  exhibits  no  marks  of  design 
and  which  turns  out  to  be  only  a  fortuitous  col 
lection  of  essays.  It  is  felt  that  the  chapters 
brought  together  under  the  cover  of  a  single  book 
should  have  something  in  common.  When  one 
sees  a  number  of  subjects,  each  standing  aloof 
from  the  others,  he  predicts  infelicity.  It  sug 
gests  incompatibility  of  temper. 

The  essays  brought  together  in  "  the  Pardoner's 
Wallet"  have  at  least  a  certain  community  of 
interest.  They  treat  of  aspects  of  human  nature 
which,  while  open  to  friendly  criticism,  are  excusa 
ble.  If  the  author  sometimes  touches  upon  the 
foibles  of  his  betters,  he  at  least  has  the  grace  to 
know  that  they  are  his  betters. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE   PARDONER    .......          i 

UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES    .         .         ...       23 

AN  HOUR  WITH  OUR  PREJUDICES  .  .  .  46 
HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  ...  82 
THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  THE  PEACEMAKERS  .  119 
THE  LAND  OF  THE  LARGE  AND  CHARITABLE 

AIR 140 

A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS  .  .  .176 
A  SAINT  RECANONIZED  .  .  .199 

AS  HE   SEES    HIMSELF 221 

A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT  .  .  .249 
THE  CRUELTY  OF  GOOD  PEOPLE  .  .  267 


THE   PARDONER 
*?** 

With  him  ther  rood  a  gentil  Pardoner 
Of  Rouncival,  his  freend  and  his  compeer, 
That  streight  was  comen  fro  the  Court  of  Rome. 

A  vernicle  hadde  he  sowed  on  his  cappe 
His  walet  lay  biforn  him  in  his  lappe 
Bretful  of  pardoun. 

I  HAVE  no  plea  to  make  for  this  fourteenth- 
century  pardoner.  He  was  an  impudent  vag 
abond,  trafficking  in  damaged  goods.  One  did 
not  need  to  be  a  Lollard  in  order  to  see  that  he 
was  a  reprehensible  character.  Discerning  per 
sons  in  need  of  relics  would  go  to  responsible 
dealers  where  they  could  be  assured  of  getting 
their  money's  worth.  This  glib-tongued  fellow 
peddling  religious  articles  from  door  to  door 
lived  on  the  credulity  of  untraveled  country 
people.  He  took  advantage  of  their  weaknesses. 
Many  a  good  wife  would  purchase  a  pardon  she 
had  no  need  of,  simply  because  he  offered  it  as  a 


2  THE   PARDONER 

bargain.  This  was  all  wrong.  We  all  know  how 
the  business  of  indulgence-selling  was  overdone. 
There  was  a  general  loss-  of  confidence  on  the 
part  of  fiie  purchasing  public ;  and  at  last  in  the 
days  of  the  too  enterprising  Tetzel  there  came  a 
disastrous  slump.  There  was  no  market  for  par 
dons,  even  of  the  gilt-edged  varieties.  Since  then 
very  little  has  been  doing  in  this  line,  at  least 
among  the  northern  nations. 

The  pardoner  richly  deserved  his  fate.  And  yet 
there  are  times  when  one  would  give  something 
to  see  the  merry  knave  coming  down  the  road. 

I  suppose  that  the  nature  of  each  individual 
has  its  point  of  moral  saturation.  When  this 
point  is  reached,  it  is  of  no  use  to  continue  exhor 
tation  or  rebuke  or  any  kind  of  didactic  effort. 
Even  the  finest  quality  of  righteous  indignation 
will  no  longer  soak  in.  With  me  the  point 
of  moral  saturation  comes  when  I  attend  suc 
cessively  more  meetings  of  a  reformatory  and 
denunciatory  character  than  nature  intended  me 
to  profit  by.  If  they  are  well  distributed  in  point 
of  time,  I  can  take  in  a  considerable  number  of 
good  causes  and  earnestly  reprobate  an  equal 
number  of  crying  evils.  But  there  is  a  certain 


THE   PARDONER  3 

monotony  of  rebuke  which  I  am  sure  is  not  bene 
ficial  to  persons  of  my  disposition.  That  some 
things  are  wrong  I  admit,  but  when  I  am 
peremptorily  ordered  to  believe  that  everything 
is  wrong,  it  arouses  in  me  a  certain  obstinacy  of 
contradiction.  I  might  be  led  to  such  a  belief,  but 
I  will  not  be  driven  to  it.  I  rebel  against  those 
censors  of  manners  and  morals  who  treat  all  hu 
man  imperfectnesses  with  equal  rigor.  To  relax 
even  for  an  instant  the  righteous  frown  over  the 
things  that  are  going  wrong,  into  an  indulgent 
smile  at  the  things  that  are  not  nearly  so  bad  as 
they  seem,  is  in  their  eyes  nothing  less  than  com 
pounding  a  felony.  If  they  would  allow  proper 
intervals  between  protests,  so  that  the  conscience 
could  cool  down,  all  would  be  well.  But  this  is 
just  what  they  will  not  allow.  The  wheels  must 
go  round  without  intermission  until  progress  is 
stopped  by  the  disagreeable  accident  of  "  a  hot 
box." 

You  remember  after  Mrs.  Proudie  had  given 
her  guests  a  severe  lesson  in  social  ethics,  the  Sig- 
nora  asked  in  her  hearing,  — 

" 4  Is  she  always  like  this  ?  ' 

" '  Yes  —  always  — madam,'  said  Mrs.  Proudie, 


4  THE   PARDONER 

returning ;  4  always  the  same  —  always  equally 
adverse  to  impropriety  of  conduct  of  every  de 
scription.'  " 

Mrs.  Proudie  was  an  excellent  woman  accord 
ing  to  her  light,  yet  Barchester  would  have  been 
a  happier  place  to  live  in  had  her  light  been  less 
constant.  A  little  flicker  now  and  then,  a  mo 
mentary  relief  from  the  glare,  would  have  been 
appreciated. 

It  is  when  the  note  of  personal  responsibility 
has  been  forced  beyond  my  ability  that  I  feel  be 
neath  my  inherited  Puritanism  the  stirring  of  a 
Kague  Papistry.  Instead  of  joining  another  pro 
testing  society  beginning  with  that  feverish  par 
ticle  "  anti,"  how  delightful  it  would  be  to  go  out 
and  dicker  with  a  well-conditioned  pardoner 

Streight  comen  fro  the  Court  of  Rome ! 

Wearied  with  diatribes  and  resolutions,  one  falls 
back  upon  the  guileless  bargainings  of  Simple 
Simon. 

"  Let  me  taste  your  ware,"  say  I. 

"  Show  me  first  your  penny,"  says  the  pardoner. 

There  is  a  renewal  of  one's  youth  in  this  im 
mortal  repartee. 

There  is  no  greater  relief  than  to  go  out  and 


THE   PARDONER  5 

buy  something,  especially  if  one  can  buy  it  cheap. 
A  great  part  of  the  attractiveness  of  the  mediaeval 
indulgences  lay  in  the  fact  that  you  could  buy 
them.  They  would  not  have  seemed  the  same 
if  they  had  been  given  away,  or  if  you  had  to  work 
them  out  like  a  road  tax.  To  go  out  and  buy  a 
little  heart's  ease  was  an  enticement. 

Then  again,  the  natural  man,  when  he  has  to 
do  with  an  institution,  is  in  a  passive  rather  than 
in  an  active  mood.  If  it  is  instituted  for  his  bet 
terment,  he  says,  "  Let  it  better  me."  It  seems 
too  bad  that  in  the  end  it  should  throw  all  the 
responsibility  back  upon  himself. 

A  delightful  old  English  traveler  criticises  the 
methods  of  transportation  he  found  in  vogue  in 
parts  of  Germany.  He  says  that  on  the  Rhine 
it  was  customary  to  make  the  passengers  do  the 
rowing.  "  Their  custome  is  that  the  passengers 
must  exercise  themselves  with  oares  and  rowing, 
alternis  vicibus,  a  couple  together.  So  that  the 
master  of  the  boate  (who  methinks  in  honestie 
ought  either  to  do  it  himself  or  to  procure  some 
others  to  do  it  for  him)  never  roweth  but  when 
his  turne  commeth.  This  exercise  both  for  recrea 
tion  and  health  sake  is  I  confesse  very  convenient 


6  THE   PARDONER 

for  man.  But  to  be  tied  unto  it  by  way  of  strict 
necessitie  when  one  payeth  well  for  his  passage 
was  a  thing  that  did  not  a  little  distaste  my  hu 
mour." 

This  is  the  trouble  which  many  of  us  find  it* 
the  modern  methods  of  doing  good.  There 
are  all  sorts  of  organizations  which  promise  well. 
But  no  sooner  have  we  embarked  on  a  worthy 
undertaking  than  we  find  that  we  are  expected 
to  work  our  passage.  The  officers  of  the  boat 
disclaim  all  further  responsibility,  leaving  that  to 
private  judgment.  It  is  the  true  Protestant  way 
and  it  works  excellently  well,  when  it  works  at  all. 
It  offers  a  fine  challenge  to  disinterested  virtue. 
But  there  are  occasions  when  the  natural  man 
rebels.  To  have  so  much  put  upon  him  doth 
"not  a  little  distaste  his  humour."  He  longs 
for  the  good  old  times  when  there  were  thinkers 
who  were  not  above  their  business,  and  who  when 
he  was  at  his  wit's  end  would  do  his  thinking  for 
him.  It 's  the  same  way  with  being  excused  for 
his  shortcomings.  Of  course  on  a  pinch  he  can 
excuse  himself,  but  he  generally  makes  a  pretty 
poor  job  of  it.  It  would  be  much  more  satisfac 
tory  to  have  a  duly  authorized  person  who,  for  a 


THE   PARDONER  7 

consideration,  would  assume  the  whole  responsi 
bility.  Of  course  if  he  had  done  something  that 
was  really  unpardonable,  that  would  be  another 
matter.  The  law  would  have  to  take  its  course. 
But  there  are  a  great  many  venial  transgressions. 
What  he  wants  is  some  one  who  can  assure  him 
that  they  are  venial. 

Let  no  good  Protestant  take  offense  at  the  find 
ing  of  a  Pardoner's  Wallet  in  this  twentieth  cen 
tury.  It  is  only  a  wallet  containing  tentative 
suggestions  concerning  things  pardonable.  No 
thing  is  authoritatively  signed  and  sealed. 

Of  one  thing  let  the  good  Protestant  take  no 
tice.  I  would  have  my  pardoner  know  his  place. 
He  must  not  meddle  with  things  too  high  for 
him.  He  has  no  right  to  deal  with  the  graver  sins 
or  to  speak  for  a  higher  power.  He  must  not 
speak  even  in  the  name  of  the  Church,  which  has 
worthier  spokesmen  than  he.  In  a  book  on  in 
dulgences  the  author  says,  "  On  the  subject  of 
elongated,  centenary,  and  millenary  pardons,  it 
would  take  too  much  space  to  enlarge."  I  should 
rule  out  all  such  ambitious  plans,  not  only  from 
lack  of  space  but  on  conscientious  grounds. 

My  pardoner  should  confine  himself  to  a  more 


8  THE   PARDONER 

modest  task.  He  should  be  the  spokesman  not 
of  any  ecclesiastical  power,  but  only  of  ordinary 
and  errant  human  nature.  There  are  sins  against 
eternal  law  that  must  at  all  times  be  taken  seri 
ously.  The  trouble  with  us  poor  mortals  is  that, 
even  in  our  remorse,  we  do  not  take  very  long 
views.  The  judgment  that  seems  most  terrible  to 
us  is  that  of  the  people  who  live  next  door.  The 
transgressions  which  loom  largest  are  offenses 
against  social  conventions  and  against  our  own 
sensitive  vanity.  The  pangs  of  remorse  for  an 
act  of  remembered  awkwardness  are  likely  to  be 
more  poignant  than  those  which  come  as  retribu 
tion  for  an  acknowledged  crime. 

Here  is  ample  room  for  a  present-day  pardoner. 
I  should  like  to  hear  him  make  the  cheery  procla 
mation  of  his  trade. 

"  Good  friends :  You  are  not  what  you  would 
like  to  be.  You  are  not  what  you  think  you  are. 
You  are  not  what  your  neighbors  think  you  are, 
—  or  rather,  you  are  not  what  you  think  your 
neighbors  think  you  are.  Your  foibles,  your  pec 
cadillos,  your  fallacies,  and  your  prejudices  are 
more  numerous  than  you  imagine.  But  take  heart 
of  grace,  good  people.  These  things  are  not  un- 


THE   PARDONER  9 

pardonable.  We  indulgences  have  learned  to 
make  allowances  for  human  nature.  Let 's  see 
what  Js  in  my  wallet !  No  crowding !  Each  will 
be  served  in  his  turn." 

If  I  were  a  duly  licensed  pardoner,  I  should 
have  a  number  of  nicely  engraved  indulgences 
for  what  are  called  sins  of  omission.  Not  that 
I  should  attempt  to  extenuate  the  graver  sort.  I 
should  not  hold  out  false  hopes  to  thankless  sons 
or  indifferent  husbands.  To  be  followed  by  such 
riff-raff  would  spoil  my  trade  with  the  better 
classes.  I  should  not  have  anything  in  my  wallet 
for  the  acrimonious  critic,  who  brings  a  railing 
accusation  against  his  neighbor,  and  omits  to  sign 
his  name.  Some  omissions  are  unpardonable. 

I  should,  at  the  beginning,  confine  my  traffic 
to  those  sins  which  easily  beset  conscientious  per 
sons  about  half  past  two  in  the  morning.  We 
have  warrant  for  thinking  that  the  sleep  of  the 
just  is  refreshing.  This  is  doubtless  true  of  the 
completely  just;  but  with  the  just  man  in  the 
making  it  is  frequently  otherwise.  There  is  a 
stage  in  his  strenuous  moral  career  which  is  con 
ducive  to  insomnia. 


io  THE   PARDONER 

Having  gone  to  sleep  because  he  was  tired,  he 
presently  awakes  for  the  same  reason.  He  is, 
however,  only  half  awake.  Those  kindly  com 
forters,  Common-sense,  Humor,  and  Self-esteem, 
whose  function  it  is  to  keep  him  on  reasonably 
good  terms  with  himself  while  he  is  doing  his 
necessary  work,  are  still  dozing. 

Then  Conscience  appears,  —  a  terrible  appa 
rition.  There  is  a  vague  menace  in  her  glance. 
The  poor  wretch  cowers  beneath  it.  Then  is 
unrolled  the  lengthening  list  of  the  things  left 
undone  which  ought  to  have  been  done.  Every 
unwritten  letter  and  uncalled  call  and  unattended 
committee  meeting  and  unread  report  emerges 
from  the  vasty  deep  and  adds  its  burden  of  unut 
terable  guilt.  The  Thing  That  Was  Not  Worth 
Doing  arises  and  demands  with  insatiate  energy 
that  it  be  done  at  once.  The  Thing  Half-done, 
because  there  was  no  time  to  finish  it,  appears 
with  wan  face  accusing  him  of  its  untimely 
taking  off.  The  Stitch  not  Taken  in  Time 
appears  with  its  pitiful  ninefold  progeny  all 
doomed  because  of  a  moment's  inattention.  It 
seems  that  his  moral  raiment,  instead  of  being 
put  together  with  an  eye  to  permanency,  has  been 


THE   PARDONER  n 

stitched  on  a  single-thread  machine  and  the  end 
of  the  seam  never  properly  fastened.  Now  he  is 
pulling  at  the  thread,  and  he  sees  the  whole  fabric 
unraveling  before  his  eyes. 

His  past  existence  looms  before  him  as  a  bat 
tlefield  with  a  perpetual  conflict  of  duties,  — 
each  duty  cruelly  slain  by  its  brother  duty.  While 
the  wailing  of  these  poor  ghosts  is  in  his  ears  he 
cannot  rest.  And  yet  he  knows  full  well  that  at 
half  past  two  in  the  morning  the  one  inexorable 
duty  is  that  he  should  go  to  sleep.  Conscience 
points  to  this  as  another  duty  left  undone.  Then 
begins  a  new  cycle  of  self-reproach. 

At  such  times  the  sight  of  an  indulgence  neatly 
framed  hanging  upon  the  bedroom  wall  would 
be  worth  more  than  it  would  cost.  It  would  save 
doctor's  bills. 

Even  in  our  waking  hours  there  is  a  tendency 
for  the  sins  of  omission  and  the  sorrows  of  omis 
sion  to  pile  up  in  monstrous  fashion.  There  is  a 
curious  ingenuity  which  some  persons  have  in 
loading  themselves  with  burdens  which  do  not 
belong  to  them,  and  in  extracting  melancholy  re 
flections  out  of  their  good  fortune.  They  will  not 
frankly  accept  a  blessing  in  its  own  proper  form, 


12  THE   PARDONER 

—  it  must  come  to  them  in  a  mournful  disguise. 
Poets  seem  particularly  subject  to  these  inversions 
of  feeling.  Here  are  some  lines  entitled  "  Two 
Sorrows : "  — 

Before  Love  came  my  eyes  were  dim  with  tears 
Because  I  had  not  known  her  gentle  face. 

Softly  I  said,  "  But  when  across  the  years 
Her  smile  illumes  the  darkness  of  my  place, 
All  grief  from  my  poor  heart  she  will  efface. " 

Now  Love  is  mine  —  she  walks  with  me  for  aye 
Down  paths  of  primrose  and  blue  violet, 

But  on  my  heart  at  every  close  of  day 

A  grief  more  keen  than  my  old  grief  is  set. 

I  weep  for  those  who  have  not  found  Love  yet. 

There  is  a  fine  altruism  about  this  sentiment 
that  one  cannot  but  respect ;  yet  I  should  hate  to 
live  with  a  person  who  felt  that  way.  One  would 
not  venture  on  any  little  kindness  for  fear  of  open 
ing  a  new  floodgate  of  tears. 

I  should  feel  like  urging  another  point  of  view. 
It  is  true  that  you  are  happy,  happier  than  you 
deserve.  But  don't  get  morbid  about  it;  take  it 
cheerfully.  It 's  not  your  fault.  It  seems  selfish, 
you  say,  to  enjoy  your  blessings  when  there  are  n't 
enough  to  go  round  among  all  your  fellow  beings. 


THE   PARDONER  13 

Why,  my  dear  fellow,  that's  the  only  way  to 
make  them  go  around.  What  if,  theoretically,  it 
is  a  little  selfish?  We  will  readily  pardon  that  for 
the  sake  of  the  satisfaction  we  get  out  of  seeing 
you  have  a  good  time.  We  much  prefer  that  you 
should  allow  us  to  sympathize  with  you  in  your 
happiness,  rather  than  that  you  should  inflict 
upon  us  too  much  sympathy  for  our  depriva 
tions. 

There  is  opportunity  for  a  thriving  trade  in 
indulgences  for  necessarily  slighted  work.  I  em 
phasize  the  idea  of  necessity,  for  I  am  aware  of 
the  danger  of  gross  abuse  if  poets  and  painters 
should  get  the  notion  that  they  may  find  easy 
absolution  for  the  sin  of  offering  to  the  public 
something  less  than  their  best.  Their  best  is  none 
too  good.  We  must  not,  through  misdirected 
charity,  lower  the  standards  of  self-respecting 
artists. 

But  some  of  us  are  not  artists.  The  ordinary 
man  is  compelled  to  spend  most  of  his  time  on 
pot-boilers  of  one  kind  or  another.  When  the  pot 
is  merrily  boiling,  and  all  the  odds  and  ends  are 
being  mingled  in  a  savory  stew,  I  would  allow 


i4  THE   PARDONER 

the  ordinary  man  some  satisfaction.  As  fingers 
were  made  before  forks,  so  mediocrity  was  made 
before  genius.  Has  mediocrity  no  right  to  enjoy 
its  own  work,  just  because  it  is  not  the  very 
best? 

We  of  the  commonalty  who  are  fitted  to  live 
happily  in  the  comparative  degree,  allow  ourselves 
to  be  bullied  by  the  superlative.  There  are  un 
easy  spirits  who  trouble  Israel.  They  continually 
quote  the  maxim  that  whatever  is  worth  doing 
is  worth  doing  well.  It  is  a  good  maxim  in  its 
way,  and  causes  no  particular  hardship  until  our 
eyes  are  opened  and  we  see  what  it  means  to  do 
anything  superlatively  well.  When  we  are  shown 
by  example  the  technical  excellence  which  is 
possible  in  the  simplest  forms  of  activity,  and 
the  extent  to  which  we  fall  short,  we  are  appalled. 
It  is  a  wonder  that  we  keep  going  at  all  when 
we  consider  the  slovenly  way  we  breathe.  And 
yet  breathing,  though  it  well  might  engage  all 
our  attention,  is  only  one  of  the  things  we  have 
to  do. 

I  attribute  a  good  deal  of  the  sense  of  stress  in 
modern  life  to  the  new  standards  of  excellence 
that  are  set  in  regard  to  the  multifarious  activities 


THE   PARDONER  15 

which  make  up  our  daily  lives.  We  have  to  do 
a  hundred  different  things.  This  is  not  particu 
larly  trying  so  long  as  it  is  merely  touch  and  go. 
In  our  amateurish  way  we  rather  enjoy  the  vari 
ety.  But  when  a  hundred  experts  beset  us,  each 
one  of  whom  has  made  a  life  study  of  a  particu 
lar  act,  we  are  bowed  in  contrition.  There  is  no 
good  in  us  but  good  intentions,  and  they  cannot 
save  us.  Our  life  story  is  summed  up  like  that 
of  the  unfortunate  sparrow  in  the  tragical  history 
of  Cock  Robin  : 

His  aim  then  he  took 
But  he  took  it  not  right. 

Our  capacity  for  imperfectness  seems  absolutely 
unlimited.  The  effort  taken  to  achieve  success  in 
one  direction  is  from  another  point  of  view  a  dis 
sipation  of  energy.  It  is  so  much  power  with 
drawn  from  another  possible  achievement.  The 
most  versatile  men  do  not  do  all  things  equally 
well,  and  while  the  world  calls  them  successful 
they  are  inwardly  conscious  of  their  manifold  fail 
ures.  Mr.  Balfour  as  Prime  Minister  of  the  Brit 
ish  Empire  has  had  much  to  gratify  his  ambition, 
but  he  takes  the  public  into  his  confidence  and 
confesses  that  he  is  a  bitterly  disappointed  man. 


1 6  THE   PARDONER 

For,  in  addition  to  other  accomplishments,  he 
plays  golf,  a  game  that  develops  a  conscience  of 
its  own.  He  plays  well,  but  his  conscience  tells 
him  that  he  does  not  play  as  well  as  he  might.  "  I 
belong,"  he  says,  "  to  that  unhappy  class  of  beings 
forever  pursued  by  remorse,  who  are  conscious 
that  they  threw  away  in  youth  opportunities  that 
were  open  to  them  of  beginning  golf  at  a  time 
of  life  when  alone  the  muscles  can  be  attuned  to 
the  full  perfection  required  by  the  most  difficult 
game  that  perhaps  exists." 

Surely  there  must  be  a  way  by  which  such  vain 
regrets  may  be  stilled.  Life  has  its  inevitable  com 
promises.  We  cannot  always  be  at  our  best. 
Take  such  a  simple  matter  as  that  of  masticating 
our  food.  Before  I  had  given  much  thought  to 
it,  I  should  have  said  that  it  was  something  worth 
doing  and  worth  doing  well.  When  I  learned 
that  Mr.  Gladstone  was  accustomed  to  chew  each 
morsel  of  food  thirty-two  times,  I  thought  it 
greatly  to  his  credit.  For  a  man  who  had  so 
many  other  things  to  do,  that  seemed  enough. 

But  when  I  read  a  book  of  some  three  hundred 
pages  containing  the  whole  duty  of  man  in  regard 
to  chewing,  I  was  disheartened.  Mr.  Gladstone 


THE   PARDONER  17 

appeared  to  be  a  mere  tyro  guilty  of  bolting  his 
food.  "  The  author  has  found  that  one  fifth  of 
the  midway  section  of  the  garden  young  onion, 
sometimes  called  shallot,  has  required  seven  hun 
dred  and  twenty-two  mastications  before  disap 
pearing  through  involuntary  swallowing." 

The  author  evidently  did  his  whole  duty  by 
that  young  onion,  and  yet  I  should  have  pardoned 
him  if  he  had  done  something  less.  That  doctrine 
of  his  about  involuntary  swallowing  being  the 
only  kind  that  is  morally  justifiable,  seems  to  me 
to  be  too  austere.  If  we  have  to  swallow  in  the 
end,  why  not  show  a  cheerful  willingness  ? 

Not  only  do  those  need  comfort  who  do  less 
than  is  expected  of  them,  those  who  do  more  are 
often  in  an  equally  sorry  plight.  Their  excel 
lences  make  them  obnoxious  to  their  neighbors, 
and  are  treated  as  unpardonable  offenses.  I  would 
have  a  special  line  of  indulgences  for  that  class 
of  people  known  as  the  "  unco  guid."  I  know  no 
persons  more  in  need  of  charity,  and  who  get  so 
little  of  it.  Every  man's  hand  is  against  them, 
especially  every  hand  that  wields  the  pen  of  a 
ready  writer.  They  seem  predestinated  to  literary 


1 8  THE   PARDONER 

reprobation,  and  that  without  regard  to  their 
genuinely  good  works  or  to  their  continuance  in 
the  same.  And  yet  the  whole  extent  of  their  crime 
is  that,  being  in  some  respects  better  than  their 
neighbors,  they  are  painfully  aware  of  the  fact. 
It  is  because  they  have  tasted  of  the  forbidden 
knowledge  of  their  own  moral  superiority  that 
their  fall  is  deemed  irremediable. 

I  confess  that,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said 
against  them,  I  have  a  tender  feeling  for  them. 
They  are  persecuted  for  self-righteousness  without 
the  benefit  of  any  beatitude.  Why  should  we 
consider  it  unpardonable  to  be  fully  cognizant  of 
one's  undoubted  virtues?  Of  course  unconscious 
virtue  is  the  more  paradisiacal,  while  conscious 
virtue  often  rubs  one  the  wrong  way.  But  while 
there  are  so  many  worse  things  in  the  world,  why 
should  we  mind  a  little  thing  like  that  ? 

We  listen  to  Dumas'  swashbuckling  heroes 
recounting  their  transgressions.  We  know  that 
they  are  not  so  bad  as  they  would  have  us  believe, 
but  we  think  no  worse  of  them  for  that.  But  let 
a  thoroughly  respectable  man  draw  attention  to  his 
own  fine  qualities,  and  we  treat  every  deviation 
from  exact  fact  as  a  crime.  When  he  indulges  in 


THE   PARDONER  19 

some  exaggeration  and  pictures  himself  as  rather 
better  than  he  is,  we  cry,  "  Hypocrite ! "  If  he 
claims  possession  of  some  single  virtue  which 
does  not,  in  our  judgment,  harmonize  with  some 
of  his  other  characteristics,  we  treat  him  as  if  he 
had  stolen  it.  And  yet,  poor  fellow  !  he  may  have 
come  honestly  by  this  bit  of  finery,  though  he  has 
not  been  able  to  get  other  things  to  match  it.  All 
this  is  unkind. 

Whatever  one  may  think  of  the  "  unco  guid," 
every  right-minded  person  must  agree  with  me 
that  something  ought  to  be  done  for  the  peace  of 
mind  of  the  quiet,  respectable,  good  people  who 
bear  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day.  I  have  in 
mind  the  people  who  pay  taxes,  and  build  homes, 
and  support  churches  and  schools  and  hospitals, 
and  now  and  then  go  to  the  theatre.  They  are  as 
likely  as  not  to  be  moderately  well  to  do,  and  if 
they  are  not,  nobody  knows  it.  When  times  are 
hard  with  them,  they  keep  their  own  counsels  and 
go  about  with  head  erect  and  the  best  foot  for 
ward.  You  may  see  multitudes  of  these  people 
every  day. 

As  a  class,  these  people  are  sadly  put  upon. 
They  are  criticised  not  only  for  their  own  short- 


20  THE   PARDONER 

comings,  but  for  those  of  all  their  irresponsible 
fellow  citizens.  If  anything  goes  wrong  they  are 
sure  to  hear  about  it,  for  they  listen  to  sermons, 
and  read  the  newspapers,  and  attend  meetings. 
No  reformer  can  be  truly  eloquent  who  does  not 
point  his  finger  at  his  hearer,  and  say,  "  Thou  art 
the  man  !  "  Now,  unfortunately,  the  real  delin 
quents  are  usually  absent,  and  the  right-minded, 
conscientious  hearer  of  the  word,  who  is  doing 
all  he  can  for  social  regeneration,  even  to  the  verge 
of  nervous  prostration,  has  to  act  as  substitute. 
He  has  been  so  often  assured  that  he  is  the  guilty 
man  that,  by  and  by,  he  comes  to  believe  it. 

He  walks  to  church  with  his  family  only  to  be 
told  that  it  is  his  fault,  and  the  fault  of  those  like 
him,  that  other  people  have  gone  off  in  their 
automobiles.  Perhaps,  if  he  had  walked  differ 
ently,  he  might  have  made  church-going  more 
attractive  to  them.  The  evils  of  intemperance 
are  laid  at  his  door.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  blame 
the  drunkard  or  the  saloon-keeper ;  they  are  not 
within  ear-shot.  As  to  pauperism  and  vice,  every 
one  knows  that  they  arise  from  social  conditions ; 
and  pray  who  is  responsible  for  these  conditions 
unless  it  be  the  meek  man  who  sits  in  the  pew,  — 


THE   PARDONER  21 

at  least,  he  is  the  only  one  who  can  readily  be 
made  to  assume  the  responsibility. 

There  is  something  wholesome  in  all  this  if  it 
be  not  overdone.  I,  myself,  like  to  have  my  fling 
at  the  man  who  is  trying  to  do  his  duty,  and  to 
twit  him  occasionally  for  not  doing  more.  It 
keeps  him  from  self-righteousness.  But  some 
times  it  is  carried  too  far,  and  the  poor  man  stag 
gers  under  a  load  of  vicarious  guilt. 

I  especially  hate  to  see  the  man  who  is  trying 
to  do  his  duty  given  over  to  the  censures  of  those 
who  do  not  try.  There  is  something  very  harsh 
in  the  judgment  of  the  ne'er-do-well  upon  his 
well-to-do  brother.  His  attitude  is  the  extreme 
of  phariseeism,  as  he  contrasts  his  own  generous 
and  care-free  nature  with  the  picayuntsh  pru 
dence  which  he  scorns.  To  be  sure,  his  brother 
in  the  end  pays  his  debts  for  him,  but  he  does  it 
with  a  narrow  scrutiny  which  robs  the  act  of  its 
natural  charm.  His  acts  of  helpfulness  are  marred 
by  a  tendency  to  didacticism.  All  these  things 
are  laid  up  against  him. 

But  allowance  should  be  made  for  the  differ 
ence  in  condition.  Ne'er-do-wellness  is  an  expan 
sive  state.  There  are  no  natural  limits  to  it.  It 


22  THE   PARDONER 

develops  broad  views,  and  its  peculiar  virtues  have 
a  free  field.  It  is  different  with  well-to-doness, 
which  is  a  precarious  condition  with  a  very  narrow 
margin  of  safety.  The  ne'er-do-well  can  afford  to 
be  generous,  seeing  that  his  generosity  costs  him 
nothing.  He  is  free  from  all  belittling  calcula 
tions  necessary  to  those  who  are  compelled  to 
adjust  means  to  ends,  —  he  is  indifferent  to  ends 
and  he  has  no  means. 

When  the  morally  responsible  person  finds 
himself  too  much  put  upon,  I  would  grant  him 
a  generous  indulgence.  After  all,  I  would  tell 
him,  the  prudential  virtues  are  not  so  bad.  It  is  a 
good  deal  of  an  achievement  to  make  both  ends 
meet.  I  am  not  disposed  to  be  too  hard  on  those 
who  accomplish  this,  even  though  I  may  think  a 
little  fullness  in  their  moral  garments  might  be 
more  becoming. 

I  should  also  make  provision  for  the  pardon 
of  those  good  people  who  are  harshly  judged  be 
cause  their  virtues  are  unseasonable.  But  their 
case  involves  delicate  considerations  that  can  best 
be  treated  in  another  chapter. 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 


are  certain  philosophers  who  have 
JL  fallen  into  the  habit  of  speaking  slightingly 
of  Time  and  Space.  Time,  they  say,  is  only  a 
poor  concept  of  ours  corresponding  to  no  ulti 
mate  reality,  and  Space  is  little  better.  They  are 
merely  mental  receptacles  into  which  we  put  our 
sensations.  We  are  assured  that  could  we  get  at 
the  right  point  of  view  we  should  see  that  real 
existence  is  timeless.  Of  course  we  cannot  get 
at  the  right  point  of  view,  but  that  does  not 
matter. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  philosophers  can 
talk  in  that  way,  for  familiarity  with  great  sub 
jects  breeds  contempt ;  but  we  of  the  laity  cannot 
dismiss  either  Time  or  Space  so  cavalierly.  Hav 
ing  once  acquired  the  time-habit,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  we  could  live  without  it.  We  are 
accustomed  to  use  the  minutes  and  hours  as  step 
ping-stones,  and  we  pick  our  way  from  one  to 


24        UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

another.  If  it  were  not  for  them,  we  should  find 
ourselves  at  once  beyond  our  depth.  It  is  the 
succession  of  events  which  makes  them  interest 
ing.  There  is  a  delightful  transitoriness  about 
everything,  and  yet  the  sense  that  there  is  more 
where  it  all  comes  from.  To  the  unsophisticated 
mind  Eternity  is  not  the  negation  of  Time ;  it  is 
having  all  the  time  one  wants.  And  why  may 
not  the  unsophisticated  mind  be  as  nearly  right  in 
such  matters  as  any  other? 

In  a  timeless  existence  there  would  be  no  dis 
tinction  between  now  and  then,  before  and  after. 
Yesterdays  and  to-days  would  be  merged  in  one 
featureless  Forever.  When  we  met  one  another  it 
would  be  impertinent  to  ask,  "  How  do  you  do  ?  " 
The  chilling  answer  would  be  :  "  I  do  not  do ;  I 
am."  There  would  be  nothing  more  to  say  to  one 
who  had  reduced  his  being  to  such  bare  meta 
physical  first  principles. 

I  much  prefer  living  in  Time,  where  there  are 
circumstances  and  incidents  to  give  variety  to 
existence.  There  is  a  dramatic  instinct  in  all  of 
us  that  must  be  satisfied.  We  watch  with  keen 
interest  for  what  is  coming  next.  We  would 
rather  have  long  waits  than  to  have  no  shifting 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES         25 

of  the  scenes,  and  all  the  actors  on  the  stage  at 
once,  doing  nothing. 

An  open-minded  editor  prints  the  following 
question  from  an  anxious  reader  in  regard  to  a 
serial  story  appearing  in  his  paper :  "  Does  it 
make  any  difference  in  reading  the  serial  whether 
I  begin  with  Saturday's  chapter  and  read  back 
ward  toward  Monday,  or  should  the  tale  be  read 
as  the  chapters  appear  ?  " 

The  editor  assures  his  subscriber  that  the  story 
is  of  such  uniform  excellence  that  it  would  read 
well  in  either  direction.  In  practical  affairs  our 
dramatic  instinct  will  not  allow  us  this  latitude. 
We  insist  upon  certain  sequences.  There  is  an 
expectancy  that  one  thing  will  lead  up  to  another. 
We  do  not  take  kindly  to  an  anti-climax  or  to 
an  anachronism.  The  Hebrew  sage  declares,  "  He 
hath  made  everything  beautiful  in  his  time."  That 
is  in  the  right  time,  but  alas  for  the  beautiful 
thing  that  falls  upon  the  wrong  time  !  It  is  be 
witched  beyond  all  recognition  by  the  old  necro 
mancer  who  has  power  to  make  "  ancient  good 
uncouth." 

It  is  just  here  that  charity  requires  that  we 
should  discriminate.  There  is  a  situation  that  de- 


26         UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

mands  the  services  of  a  kind-hearted  indulgence!1. 
Ethics  has  to  do  with  two  kinds  of  offenses :  one 
is  against  the  eternal  and  unchanging  standards 
of  right  and  wrong,  and  the  other  against  the 
perpetually  varying  conditions  of  the  passing  day. 
We  are  continually  confusing  the  two.  We  visit 
upon  the  ancient  uncouth  good  which  comes 
honestly  stumbling  on  its  belated  journey  toward 
the  perfect,  all  the  condemnation  that  properly 
belongs  to  willful  evil.  It  is  lucky  if  it  gets  off  so 
easily  as  that,  for  we  are  likely  to  add  the  pains 
and  penalties  which  belong  to  hypocritical  pre 
tense.  As  for  a  premature  kind  of  goodness  com 
ing  before  there  is  time  properly  to  classify  it,  that 
must  expect  martyrdom.  Something  of  the  old 
feeling  about  strangers  still  survives  in  us.  We 
think  it  safer  to  treat  the  stranger  as  an  enemy. 
If  he  survives  our  attacks  we  may  make  friends 
with  him. 

Those  good  people  who,  in  their  devotion  to 
their  own  ideals,  have  ignored  all  considerations 
of  timeliness,  have  usually  passed  through  sore 
tribulations.  They  have  been  the  victims  of  cruel 
misunderstandings.  Such,  for  example,  was  Saint 
Cerbonius.  Cerbonius  is  one  of  the  October  saints. 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES        27 

October  is  a  good  month  for  saints.  The  ecclesi 
astical  calendar  gives  us  a  sense  of  spiritual  mel 
lowness  and  fruitfulness.  The  virtues  celebrated 
are  without  the  acidity  which  belongs  to  some 
other  seasons :  witness  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi, 
Saint  Teresa,  Saint  Luke,  the  beloved  physician, 
Saint  John  Capistran,  of  whom  it  is  written,  "  he 
had  a  singular  talent  for  reconciling  inveterate 
enemies  and  inducing  them  to  love  one  another." 
Cerbonius  has  a  modest  place  in  this  autumnal 
brotherhood ;  indeed,  in  some  Lives  of  the  Saints, 
he  is  not  even  mentioned,  and  yet  he  had  the 
true  October  spirit.  Nevertheless,  his  good  was 
evil  spoken  of,  and  he  came  near  to  excommuni 
cation,  and  all  because  of  his  divergence  from 
popular  custom  in  the  matter  of  time. 

It  seems  that  he  lived  towards  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century,  and  that  he  was  bishop  of  Piom- 
bino.  Very  soon  a  great  scandal  arose,  for  it  was 
declared  that  the  bishop  was  neglecting  his  duties. 
At  the  accustomed  hour  the  citizens  came  to  the 
cathedral  for  their  devotions,  only  to  find  the  chan 
cel  devoid  of  clergy.  Cerbonius  and  his  priests 
were  at  that  moment  comfortably  seated  at  break 
fast.  Each  succeeding  morning  witnessed  the 


28         UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

same  scene.  The  bishop  was  evidently  an  infidel 
scoffing  at  the  rites  of  religion.  Appeal  was  made 
to  Rome,  and  legates  were  appointed  who  con 
firmed  the  astounding  rumors.  At  last  Cerbonius 
went  to  Rome  to  plead  his  cause ;  but  only  by  a 
special  miracle  was  his  character  cleared.  The 
miracle  induced  the  authorities  to  look  into  the 
matter  more  carefully,  and  it  was  found  that  Cer 
bonius,  instead  of  neglecting  his  duties,  had  been 
carried  away  by  holy  zeal.  While  the  people  of 
Piombino  were  still  in  their  beds,  Cerbonius  and 
his  clergy  would  be  celebrating  mass.  As  for 
breakfast,  that  was  quite  late  in  the  day. 

It  is  easy  to  be  wise  after  the  event,  and  now 
that  the  matter  has  been  cleared  up  it  is  evident 
that  all  the  religion  was  not  on  one  side.  Taking 
a  large  view  of  the  subject,  we  see  that  in  the 
course  of  the  twenty-four  hours  the  bishop  spent 
as  much  time  in  the  church  as  the  most  scrupu 
lous  parishioner  could  ask.  But  it  was  just  this 
large  view  that  they  were  unwilling  to  take.  With 
them  it  was  now  or  never.  They  judged  his  char 
acter  by  the  cross-section  which  they  took  at  one 
particular  hour. 

I  suppose  that,  had   I  lived  in  Piombino,  I 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES         29 

should  have  been  a  moderate  anti-Cerbonian. 
Cerbonius  was  in  error,  but  not  in  mortal  sin.  He 
was  guilty  of  a  heresy  that  disturbed  the  peace 
of  the  church,  —  that  of  early  rising.  So  long  as 
early  rising  is  held  only  as  a  creed  for  substance 
of  doctrine  and  set  forth  as  a  counsel  of  perfection, 
it  may  be  tolerated,  but  when  the  creed  becomes 
a  deed  it  awakens  fanatical  opposition.  This 
breeds  schism.  A  person  cannot  be  popular  who 
gets  the  reputation  of  being  a  human  alarm  clock. 
The  primitive  instinct  in  regard  to  an  alarm  clock 
is  to  stop  it.  If  Cerbonius  had  possessed  the  tact 
necessary  to  a  man  in  his  position,  he  would  not 
only  have  done  his  duty,  but  he  would  have  done 
it  at  the  time  most  convenient  to  the  greatest 
number.  His  virtue  was  unseasonable ;  but  be 
tween  a  man  of  unseasonable  virtue  and  an  aban 
doned  character  who  has  no  virtue  at  all,  there  is 
a  great  difference.  It  is  just  this  difference  which 
the  majority  of  people  will  not  see.  They  make 
no  distinction  between  one  who  deliberately  of 
fends  against  the  eternal  verities  and  one  who 
accidentally  tramples  upon  a  temporary  verity 
that  he  did  n't  know  was  there. 

Most  of  our  quarrels  do  not  concern  absolute 


30        UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

right  and  wrong ;  they  arise  from  disputes  about 
the  time  of  day.  Two  persons  may  have  the 
same  qualities  and  convictions  and  yet  never 
agree.  An  ironical  fate  sets  them  at  cross  pur 
poses  and  they  never  meet  without  irritating  con 
tradictions.  It  is  all  because  their  moods  do  not 
synchronize.  One  is  always  a  little  too  slow,  the 
other  a  little  too  fast.  When  one  is  in  fine  fettle 
the  other  is  just  beginning  to  get  tired.  They 
are  equally  serious,  but  never  on  the  same  occa 
sion,  and  so  each  accuses  the  other  of  heartless 
frivolity.  They  have  an  equal  appreciation  of  a 
pleasantry,  but  they  never  see  it  at  the  same  in 
stant.  One  gives  it  an  uproarious  welcome  when 
the  other  is  speeding  the  parting  guest. 

Two  quick-tempered  people  may  live  together 
very  comfortably  so  long  as  they  lose  their  tem 
pers  simultaneously ;  they  are  then  ready  to  make 
up  at  the  same  time.  They  get  on  like  an  auto 
mobile,  by  a  series  of  small  explosions  accurately 
timed.  But  when  a  quick-tempered  person  is  un 
equally  yoked  with  one  who  is  slow  to  wrath,  the 
case  is  difficult.  The  slowness  causes  continual 
apprehension.  The  fuse  burns  so  deliberately  that 
it  seems  to  have  gone  out  and  then  the  explo- 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES        31 

sion  comes.  In  such  cases  there  can  be  no  ade 
quate  explanation.  The  offender  would  apologize 
if  he  could  remember  what  the  offense  was,  and 
he  does  n't  dare  to  ask. 

Said  one  theologian  to  another:  "The  differ 
ence  between  us  is  that  your  God  is  my  Devil." 
This  involved  more  than  the  mere  matter  of  no 
menclature.  It  upset  the  spiritual  time-table  and 
caused  disastrous  collisions.  When  one  good  man 
set  forth  valiantly  to  fight  the  Devil,  the  other 
would  charge  him  with  disturbing  his  worship. 

The  fact  that  one  man's  work  is  another  man's 
play  is  equally  fruitful  in  misunderstandings.  The 
proverbial  irritability  of  the  literary  and  artistic 
tribes  arises  in  part  from  this  cause.  They  feel  that 
they  are  never  taken  seriously.  When  we  go  to 
a  good  play  we  find  it  so  easy  to  be  amused  that 
we  do  not  realize  what  hard  work  it  is  for  those 
whose  business  it  is  to  be  amusing.  The  better 
the  work,  the  more  effortless  it  seems  to  us.  On 
a  summer  afternoon  we  take  up  a  novel  in  a  mood 
which  to  the  conscientious  novelist  seems  sacri 
lege.  He  has  thrown  all  the  earnestness  of  his 
nature  into  it,  and  he  wants  his  message  to  be 
received  in  the  same  spirit.  We  have  earnestness 


32         UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

of  nature  too,  but  we  have  expended  it  in  other 
directions.  Having  finished  our  work,  we  take 
our  rest  by  reading  his.  It  is  a  pleasant  way  to 
pass  the  time.  This  enrages  the  novelist,  and  he 
writes  essays  to  rebuke  us.  He  calls  us  Philistines 
and  other  hard  names,  and  says  that  we  are  inca 
pable  of  appreciating  literary  art. 

But  what  is  our  offense  ?  We  have  used  his 
work  for  our  own  purpose,  which  was  to  rest  our 
minds.  We  got  out  of  it  what  at  the  time  we 
needed.  Does  he  not  act  in  very  much  the  same 
way?  Did  we  not  see  him  at  the  town-meeting 
when  a  very  serious  question  concerning  the  man 
agement  of  the  town  poor-house  was  to  be  set 
tled  ?  It  was  a  time  when  every  good  citizen 
should  have  shown  his  interest  by  speaking  an 
earnest  word.  Unmindful  of  all  this,  he  sat 
through  the  meeting  with  the  air  of  an  amused 
outsider.  He  paid  little  attention  to  the  weighty 
arguments  of  the  selectmen,  but  noted  down  all 
their  slips  in  grammar.  He  confessed  unblush- 
ingly  that  he  attended  the  meeting  simply  to  get 
a  little  local  color.  What  is  to  become  of  the 
country  when  a  tax-payer  will  take  the  duties  of 
citizenship  so  lightly? 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES        33 

These  recriminations  go  on  endlessly.  Because 
we  do  not  see  certain  qualities  in  action,  we  deny 
their  existence.  The  owl  has  a  reputation  for 
sedentary  habits  and  unpractical  wisdom,  simply 
because  he  keeps  different  business  hours  from 
those  to  which  we  are  accustomed.  Could  we 
look  in  on  him  during  the  rush  time,  we  would 
find  him  a  hustling  fellow.  He  has  no  time  to 
waste  on  unremunerative  meditation.  This  is  his 
busy  night.  How  ridiculous  is  the  sleepiness  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  animal  world !  There  is 
the  lark  nodding  for  hours  on  his  perch.  They 
say  he  never  really  wakes  up  —  at  least,  nobody 
has  seen  him  awake. 

There  is  a  pedagogical  theory  according  to 
which  each  individual  in  his  early  life  repeats 
quite  accurately  the  history  of  mankind  up  to 
date.  He  passes  through  all  the  successive  stages 
in  the  history  of  the  race,  with  a  few  extra  flour 
ishes  now  and  then  to  indicate  the  surprises  which 
the  future  may  have  in  store  for  us.  The  history 
of  civilization  becomes,  for  the  initiated,  the  re 
hearsal  of  the  intensely  interesting  drama  of  the 
nursery  and  the  schoolroom.  It  lacks  the  delicacy 


34         UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

of  the  finished  performance,  but  it  presents  the  ar 
gument  clearly  enough  and  suggests  the  necessary 
stage  business.  The  young  lady  who  attempts  to 
guide  a  group  of  reluctant  young  cave-dwellers 
from  one  period  in  human  culture  to  another  is  not 
surprised  at  any  of  their  tantrums.  Her  only  anx 
iety  is  lest  some  form  of  barbarism  appropriate 
to  their  condition  may  have  been  skipped.  Her 
chief  function  is  like  that  of  the  chorus  in  the 
Greek  tragedy,  to  explain  to  the  audience  each 
dramatic  situation  as  it  unfolds. 

I  should  not  like  to  take  the  responsibility  of 
running  such  an  excellent  theory  into  the  ground, 
yet  it  does  seem  to  me  that  it  might  be  carried 
further.  Granted  that  childhood  is  innocent  sav 
agery  and  that  adolescence  is  gloriously  barbaric, 
what  is  the  matter  with  mature  life  ?  Does  it  not 
have  any  remnants  of  primitiveness  ?  Does  not 
Tennyson  write  of  "  the  gray  barbarian  "  *? 

The  transitions  from  primitive  savagery  to  civ 
ilization  which  took  the  race  centuries  to  accom 
plish  are  repeated  by  the  individual,  not  once  but 
many  times.  After  we  get  the  knack  of  it,  we  can 
run  over  the  alphabet  of  human  progress  back 
wards  as  well  as  forwards. 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES         35 

Exit  Troglodyte.  Enter  Philosopher  discours 
ing  on  disinterested  virtue.  Reenter  Troglodyte. 
Such  dramatic  transformations  may  be  expected 
by  merely  changing  the  subject  of  the  conversa 
tion. 

I  remember  sitting,  one  Sunday  afternoon,  on 
a  vine-covered  piazza  reading  to  a  thoughtful 
and  irascible  friend.  The  book  was  Martineau's 
"Endeavors  after  the  Christian  Life."  In  the 
middle  of  the  second  discourse  my  friend's  dog 
rushed  into  the  street  to  attack  the  dog  of  a 
passer-by.  It  was  one  of  those  sudden  and 
unpredictable  antipathies  to  which  the  members 
of  the  canine  race  are  subject.  My  friend,  in 
stead  of  preserving  a  dignified  neutrality,  rushed 
into  the  fray  in  the  spirit  of  offensive  partisanship, 
and  instantly  became  involved  in  an  altercation 
with  the  gentleman  on  the  sidewalk.  Canes  were 
brandished,  fierce  threats  were  exchanged,  and 
only  by  the  greatest  efforts  were  the  Homeric  he 
roes  separated.  Returning  to  his  chair,  my  friend 
handed  me  the  book,  saying,  "Now  let  us  go 
on  with  our  religion."  The  religion  went  on  as 
placidly  as  aforetime.  There  was  no  sense  of 
confusion.  The  wrath  of  Achilles  did  not  dis- 


3  6         UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

turb  the  calm  spirituality  of  Martineau.  Each 
held  the  centre  of  the  stage  for  his  own  moment, 
and  there  was  no  troublesome  attempt  to  har 
monize  them.  Why  should  there  be?  Marti 
neau  was  not  talking  about  dogs. 

I  know  no  greater  luxury  than  that  of  think 
ing  well  of  my  fellow-men.  It  is  a  luxury  which 
a  person  in  narrow  circumstances,  who  is  com 
pelled  to  live  within  the  limits  of  strict  veracity, 
sometimes  feels  to  be  beyond  his  means.  Yet  I 
think  it  no  harm  to  indulge  in  a  little  extrava 
gance  in  this  direction.  The  best  device  for  see 
ing  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  to  advantage 
is  to  arrange  them  in  their  proper  chronological 
order. 

For  years  it  was  the  custom  to  speak  dispar 
agingly  of  the  "  poor  whites  "  of  our  Southern 
mountains.  Shut  off  from  the  main  currents  of 
modern  life,  they  seemed  unpardonably  unpro- 
gressive.  They  were  treated  as  mere  degenerates. 
At  last,  however,  a  keener  and  kindlier  observer 
hit  upon  a  happy  phrase.  These  isolated  moun 
taineers,  he  said,  have  retained  the  characteristic 
habits  of  a  former  generation.  They  are  our  "  con 
temporary  ancestors."  Instantly  everything  was 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES        37 

put  in  a  more  favorable  light;  for  we  all  are  dis 
posed  to  see  the  good  points  in  our  ancestors. 
After  all,  the  whole  offense  with  which  these 
mountain  people  are  charged  is  that  they  are  be 
hind  the  times.  In  our  bona-fide  contemporaries 
this  is  a  grave  fault,  but  in  our  ancestors  it  is  par 
donable.  We  do  not  expect  them  to  live  up  to 
our  standards,  and  so  we  give  them  credit  for  liv 
ing  up  to  their  own. 

In  this  case  we  agree  to  consider  fifty  miles  of 
mountain  roads,  if  they  be  sufficiently  bad,  as  the 
equivalent  of  rather  more  than  a  hundred  years 
of  time.  Behind  the  barrier  the  twentieth  century 
does  not  yet  exist.  Many  things  may  still  be 
winked  at  for  which  the  later  generation  may  be 
sternly  called  to  repentance.  Then,  too,  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century  has  some  good  points 
of  its  own.  These  contemporary  ancestors  of  ours 
are  of  good  old  English  stock,  and  we  begin  to 
look  upon  them  with  a  good  deal  of  family 
pride. 

But  when  we  once  accept  poor  roads  as  the 
equivalent  of  the  passage  of  time,  putting  people 
at  the  other  end  into  another  generation,  there  is 
no  knowing  what  we  may  come  to  in  our  chari- 


3  8         UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

table  interpretations.  For  there  are  other  equally 
effective  non-conductors  of  thought.  By  the  sim 
ple  device  of  not  knowing  how  to  read,  a  man 
cuts  off  some  thousands  of  culture  years  and  saves 
himself  from  no  end  of  intellectual  distractions. 
He  becomes  the  contemporary  of  "  earth's  vigor 
ous,  primitive  sons."  If  to  his  illiteracy  he  adds 
native  talent  and  imagination,  there  is  a  chance 
for  him  to  make  for  himself  some  of  those  fine 
old  discoveries  which  we  lose  because  we  got  the 
answer  from  some  blabbing  book  before  we  had 
come  to  the  point  of  asking  the  question.  Of 
course  the  danger  is  that  if  he  has  native  talent 
and  imagination  he  will  learn  to  read,  and  it  must 
be  confessed  that  for  this  reason  we  do  not  get 
such  a  high  order  of  illiterates  as  formerly. 

I  once  made  the  acquaintance  of  an  ancient 
Philosopher.  His  talents  were  for  cosmogony,  and 
his  equipment  would  have  been  deemed  ample 
in  the  days  when  cosmogony  was  the  fashion.  He 
had  meditated  much  on  the  genesis  of  things  and 
had  read  nothing,  so  that  his  speculations  were 
uncontaminated  by  the  investigations  of  others. 
He  was  just  the  man  to  construct  a  perfectly  simple 
and  logical  theory  of  the  universe,  and  he  did  it. 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES        39 

His  universe  was  not  like  that  of  which  our  sciences 
give  us  imperfect  glimpses,  but  it  was  very  satis 
factory  to  him.  He  was  very  fair  in  dealing  with 
facts;  he  explained  all  that  could  be  explained 
by  his  system.  As  the  only  criterion  of  a  fact 
which  he  recognized  was  that  it  agreed  with  his 
system,  there  was  none  left  over  to  trouble  him. 
His  manner  of  thought  was  so  foreign  to  that  of 
our  time  that  his  intellectual  ability  was  not  widely 
appreciated;  yet  had  his  birth  not  been  so  long 
delayed,  he  might  have  been  the  founder  of  a 
school  and  have  had  books  written  about  him. 
For  so  far  as  I  could  learn,  his  views  of  the  four 
elements  of  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water,  were  very 
much  like  those  of  the  early  Greek  physicists. 
Had  I  taken  him  as  a  fellow  American,  I  should 
have  dismissed  him  as  not  up  to  date;  but  consid 
ering  him  in  the  light  of  an  ancient  sage,  I  found 
much  in  him  to  admire. 

Once  upon  the  coast  of  Maine  I  came  upon 
a  huge  wooden  cylinder.  Within  it  was  a  smaller 
one,  and  in  the  centre,  seated  upon  a  swinging 
platform,  was  the  owner  of  the  curious  contrivance. 
He  was  a  mild-eyed,  pleasant-spoken  man,  whom 
it  was  a  pleasure  to  meet.  He  explained  that  this 


40        UNSEASONABLE  VIRTUES 

was  "  The  Amphibious  Vehicle,"  and  that  it 
would  move  equally  well  on  land  or  sea. 

"  You  know,"  said  he,  "  what  the  prophet  Eze- 
kiel  said  about  the  'wheel  in  the  middle  of  a 
wheel '  <? " 

"  Yes,"  I  answered. 

"  Well,  this  is  it." 

There  was  something  convincing  in  this  mat 
ter-of-fact  statement.  The  "wheel  within  a  wheel  " 
had  been  to  me  little  more  than  a  figure  of  speech, 
but  here  it  was  made  out  of  good  pine  lumber, 
with  a  plank  in  the  middle  for  the  living  crea 
ture  to  sit  on.  It  was  as  if  I  had  fallen  through 
a  trap  door  into  another  age.  Here  was  a  literal- 
minded  contemporary  of  Ezekiel,  who,  having 
heard  of  the  wheel  within  a  wheel,  had  proceeded 
at  once  to  make  one.  I  ascended  into  the  pre 
carious  seat,  and  we  conversed  upon  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  possibilities  of  the  vehicle.  I  found 
that  on  the  scriptural  argument  he  was  clearly 
ahead  of  me,  being  able  to  quote  chapter  and 
verse  with  precision,  while  my  references  were 
rather  vague.  In  the  field  of  mechanics  he  was 
also  my  superior.  I  could  not  have  made  the 
vehicle,  having  not  yet  emerged  beyond  the  stone 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES        41 

age.  As  we  talked  I  forgot  that  we  were  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Penobscot.  We  were  on  the  "river 
of  Chebar,"  and  there  was  no  knowing  what  might 
happen. 

The  belated  philosophers  and  inventors,  who 
think  the  thoughts  of  the  ancient  worthies  after 
them,  live  peaceful  lives.  What  matters  it  that 
they  are  separated  by  a  millennium  or  two  from 
the  society  in  which  they  were  fitted  to  shine  *? 
They  are  self-sufficing,  and  there  are  few  who 
care  to  contradict  them.  It  is  not  so  with  one 
who  is  morally  belated.  There  is  something  pa 
thetic  in  the  condition  of  one  who  cherishes  the 
ambition  of  being  a  good  man,  but  who  has  not 
informed  himself  of  the  present  "state  of  the  art." 

Now  and  then  an  ethical  revolution  takes  place. 
New  ideals  are  proclaimed,  and  in  their  light  all 
things  are  judged.  The  public  conscience  be 
comes  sensitive  in  regard  to  courses  of  conduct 
which  heretofore  had  been  unchallenged.  Every 
such  advance  involves  a  waste  in  established 
reputations.  There  are  always  excellent  men  who 
are  not  aware  of  what  has  been  going  on.  They 
keep  on  conforming  scrupulously  to  the  old  stand- 


42         UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

ards,  being  good  in  the  familiar  ways  that  were 
commended  in  their  youth.  After  a  time  they 
find  themselves  in  an  alien  world,  and  in  that 
world  they  are  no  longer  counted  among  the  best 
people.  The  tides  of  moral  enthusiasm  are  all 
against  them.  The  good  man  feels  his  solid 
ground  of  goodness  slipping  away  from  under 
him.  Time  has  played  false  with  his  moral  con 
ventionalities.  He  is  like  a  polar  bear  on  a  fast- 
diminishing  iceberg,  growling  at  the  Gulf  Stream. 
When  a  great  evil  has  been  recognized  by  the 
world,  there  is  a  revision  of  all  our  judgments.  A 
new  principle  of  classification  is  introduced,  by 
which  we  differentiate  the  goats  from  the  sheep. 
It  is  hard  after  that  to  revive  the  old  admirations. 
The  temperance  agitation  of  the  last  century  has 
not  abolished  drunkenness,  but  it  has  made  the 
conception  of  a  pious,  respectable  drunkard  seem 
grotesque.  It  has  also  reduced  the  business  of 
liquor-selling  to  a  decidedly  lower  place  in  the 
esteem  of  the  community.  When  we  read  to-day 
of  the  horrors  of  the  slave  trade,  we  reconstruct  in 
our  imagination  the  character  of  the  slave  trader, 
—  and  a  brutal  wretch  he  is.  But  in  his  day  the 
Guinea  captain  held  his  own  with  the  best.  He 


UNSEASONABLE  VIRTUES        43 

was  a  good  husband  and  father,  a  kind  neighbor, 
a  generous  benefactor.  President  Ezra  Stiles  of 
Yale  College,  in  his  "  Literary  Diary,"  describes 
such  a  beautiful  character.  It  was  when  Dr.  Stiles 
was  yet  a  parish  minister  in  Newport  that  one 
of  his  parishioners  died,  of  whom  he  wrote  : 
"  God  had  blessed  him  with  a  good  Estate  and 
he  and  his  Family  have  been  eminent  for  Hospi 
tality  to  all  and  Charity  to  the  poor  and  afflicted. 
At  his  death  he  recommended  Religion  to  his 
Children  and  told  them  that  the  world  was  nothing. 
The  only  external  blemish  on  his  Character  was 
that  he  was  a  little  addicted  to  the  marvelous  in 
stories  of  what  he  had  seen  in  his  Voyages  and 
Travels.  But  in  his  Dealings  he  was  punctual, 
upright,  and  honest,  and  (except  as  to  the  Flie  in 
the  Oynment,  the  disposition  to  tell  marvelous 
Stories  of  Dangers,  Travels,  &c.),  in  all  other 
Things  he  was  of  a  sober  and  good  moral  charac 
ter,  respected  and  beloved  of  all,  so  as  to  be  almost 
without  enemies.  He  was  forward  in  all  the  con 
cerns  of  the  Church  and  Congregation,  consulting 
its  Benefit  and  peaceably  falling  in  with  the  gen 
eral  sense  without  exciting  quarrels,  parties,  &c., 
and  even  when  he  differed  from  his  Brethren  he 


44        UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES 

so  differed  from  them  that  they  loved  him  amidst 
the  differences.  He  was  a  peaceable  man  and 
promoted  Peace." 

It  was  in  1773  that  this  good  man  died  in  the 
odor  of  sanctity.  It  is  quite  incidentally  that  we 
learn  that  "  he  was  for  many  years  a  Guinea  cap 
tain,  and  had  no  doubt  of  the  slave  trade."  His 
pastor  suggests  that  he  might  have  chosen  an 
other  business  than  that  of  "  buying  and  selling 
the  human  species."  Still,  in  1773,  this  did  not 
constitute  an  offense  serious  enough  to  be  termed 
a  fly  in  the  ointment.  In  1785,  Dr.  Stiles  speaks 
of  the  slave  trade  as  "  a  most  iniquitous  trade  in 
the  souls  of  men."  Much  may  happen  in  a  dozen 
years  in  changing  one's  ideas  of  moral  values.  In 
another  generation  the  civilized  world  was  agreed 
that  the  slave  trade  was  piracy.  After  that  there 
were  no  fine  Christian  characters  among  the  slave 
traders. 

There  is  evidence  that  at  the  present  time 
there  is  an  awakening  of  the  social  conscience 
that  threatens  as  great  a  revolution  as  that  which 
came  with  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade.  Busi 
ness  methods  which  have  been  looked  upon  as 
consistent  with  high  moral  character  are  being 


UNSEASONABLE   VIRTUES         45 

condemned  as  "the  sum  of  all  villainies."  The 
condemnation  is  not  yet  universal,  and  there  are 
still  those  who  are  not  conscious  that  anything  has 
happened.  The  Christian  monopolist,  ruthlessly 
crushing  out  his  competitors  and  using  every  trick 
-known  to  the  trade,  has  no  more  doubts  as  to  the 
rightfulness  of  his  proceedings  than  had  the  good 
'Newport  captain  in  regard  to  the  slave  trade. 

It  is  a  good  time  to  have  his  obituary  written. 
IHis  contemporaries  appreciate  his  excellent  pri 
vate  virtues,  and  have  been  long  accustomed  to 
Hook  leniently  on  his  public  wrong-doing.  The 
new  generation,  having  agreed  to  call  his  methods 
robbery,  may  find  the  obituary  eulogies  amusing. 


AN    HOUR   WITH   OUR   PREJUDICES 


WE  may  compare  the  human  mind  to  a 
city.  It  has  its  streets,  its  places  of  busi 
ness  and  amusement,  its  citizens  of  every  degree. 
When  one  person  is  introduced  to  another  it  is 
as  if  the  warder  drew  back  the  bolts,  and  the 
gates  were  thrown  open.  If  he  comes  well  re 
commended  he  is  given  the  freedom  of  the  city. 
In  the  exercise  of  this  freedom,  however,  the 
stranger  should  show  due  caution. 

There  is  usually  a  new  quarter.  Here  the  streets 
are  well  lighted  and  policed,  the  crowds  are  cos 
mopolitan,  and  the  tourist  who  wanders  about 
looking  at  the  shop  windows  is  sure  of  a  civil 
reply  to  his  questions.  There  is  no  danger  of 
highway  robbers,  though  of  course  one  may  be 
taken  in  by  confidence  men.  But  if  he  be  of  an 
inquiring  mind  and  a  lover  of  the  picturesque,  he 
is  not  satisfied  with  this.  After  all,  the  new  quar 
ters  are  very  much  alike,  and  one  tires  after  a 


OUR   PREJUDICES  47 

while  of  shop  windows.  The  visitor  longs  to  ex 
plore  the  old  town,  with  its  winding  ways,  with 
its  overhanging  houses,  and  its  mild  suggestions 
•of  decay. 

But  in  the  mental  city  the  lover  of  the  pictur 
esque  must  remember  that  he  carries  his  life  in 
his  hands.  It  is  not  safe  to  say  to  a  casual  ac 
quaintance,  "  Now  I  have  a  fair  idea  of  that  part 
of  your  mind  which  is  like  that  of  any  other  de 
cently  educated  person.  I  have  seen  all  the  spick 
and  span  show  places,  and  admired  all  the  modern 
improvements.  Where  are  your  ruins  *?  I  should 
like  to  poke  around  a  while  in  the  more  dilapi 
dated  section  of  your  intellect." 

Ah,  but  that  is  the  Forbidden  City.  It  is  in 
habited,  not  by  orderly  citizens,  under  the  rule  of 
Right  Reason,  but  by  a  lawless  crowd  known  as 
the  Prejudices.  They  are  of  all  sorts  and  con 
ditions.  Some  are  of  aristocratic  lineage.  They 
come  from  a  long  line  of  hereditary  chiefs,  who, 
as  their  henchmen  have  deserted  them,  have  re 
treated  into  their  crumbling  strongholds.  Some 
are  bold,  roistering  blades  who  will  not  stand  a 
question ;  dangerous  fellows,  these,  to  meet  in  the 
dark !  The  majority,  perhaps,  are  harmless  folk, 


48  AN   HOUR   WITH 

against  whom  the  worst  that  can  be  said  is  that 
they  have  a  knack  of  living  without  visible  means 
of  support. 

A  knowledge  of  human  nature,  as  distinguished 
from  a  knowledge  of  moral  philosophy,  is  a  per 
ception  of  the  important  part  played  by  instinc 
tive  likes  and  dislikes,  by  perverse  antipathies,  by 
odd  ends  of  thought,  by  conclusions  which  have 
got  hopelessly  detached  from  their  premises  — 
if  they  ever  had  any.  The  formal  philosopher, 
judging  others  by  himself,  works  on  the  assump 
tion  that  man  is  naturally  a  reasoning  animal, 
whereas  experience  teaches  that  the  craving  for 
the  reasonable  is  an  acquired  taste. 

Of  course  we  all  have  reasons  for  our  opinions, 
—  plenty  of  them !  But  in  the  majority  of  cases 
they  stand  not  as  antecedents,  but  as  consequents. 
There  is  a  reversal  of  the  rational  order  like  that 
involved  in  Dr.  Hale's  pleasant  conceit  of  the 
young  people  who  adopted  a  grandmother.  In 
spite  of  what  intellectual  persons  say,  I  do  not 
see  how  we  can  get  along  without  prejudices.  A 
prejudice  is  defined  as  "an  opinion  or  decision 
formed  without  due  examination  of  the  facts  or 
arguments  which  are  necessary  to  a  just  and  im- 


OUR   PREJUDICES  49 

partial  determination."  Now,  it  takes  a  good  deal 
of  time  to  make  a  due  examination  of  facts  and 
arguments,  even  in  regard  to  a  small  matter.  In 
the  meantime  our  minds  would  be  sadly  unfur 
nished.  If  we  are  to  make  a  fair  show  in  the 
world,  we  must  get  our  mental  furniture  when 
we  set  up  housekeeping,  and  pay  for  it  on  the 
installment  plan. 

Instead  of  taking  a  pharisaic  attitude  toward 
our  neighbor's  prejudices,  it  is  belter  to  cultivate 
a  wise  tolerance,  knowing  that  human  intercourse 
is  dependent  on  the  art  of  making  allowances. 
This  is  consistent  with  perfect  honesty.  There  is 
always  something  to  admire  if  the  critic  is  suffi 
ciently  discriminating.  When  you  are  shown  a 
bit  of  picturesque  dilapidation,  it  is  quite  possible 
to  enjoy  it.  Said  the  Hebrew  sage,  "  I  went  by 
the  field  of  the  slothful,  and  by  the  vineyard  of 
the  man  void  of  understanding ;  and,  lo,  it  was  all 
grown  over  with  thorns,  and  nettles  had  covered 
the  face  thereof,  and  the  stone  wall  thereof  was 
broken  down.  Then  I  saw,  and  considered  it  well: 
I  looked  upon  it,  and  received  instruction." 

His  point  of  view  was  that  of  a  moralist.  Had 
he  also  been  a  bit  of  an  artist,  the  sight  of  the  old 


50  AN   HOUR   WITH 

wall  with  its  tangle  of  flowering  briers  would  have 
had  still  further  interest. 

When  one's  intellectually  slothful  neighbor 
points  with  pride  to  portions  of  his  untilled  fields, 
we  must  not  be  too  hard  upon  him.  We  also 
have  patches  of  our  own  that  are  more  pic 
turesque  than  useful.  Even  if  we  ourselves  are 
diligent  husbandmen,  making  ceaseless  war  on 
weeds  and  vermin,  there  are  times  of  relenting. 
Have  you  never  felt  a  tenderness  when  the 
ploughshare  of  criticism  turned  up  a  prejudice 
of  your  own  ?  You  had  no  heart  to  harm  the 

Wee  sleekit,  cow'rin',  tim'rous  beastie. 

It  could  not  give  a  good  account  of  itself.  It  had 
been  so  long  snugly  ensconced  that  it  blinked 
helplessly  in  the  garish  light.  Its 

wee-bit  housie,  too,  in  ruin  ! 
Its  silly  wa's  the  win's  are  strewin'  ! 
And  naething  now  to  big  a  new  ane. 

You  would  have  been  very  angry  if  any  one  had 
trampled  upon  it. 

This  is  the  peculiarity  about  a  prejudice.  It  is 
very  appealing  to  the  person  who  holds  it.  A  man 
is  seldom  offended  by  an  attack  on  his  reasoned 


OUR   PREJUDICES  51 

judgments.  They  are  supported  by  evidence  and 
can  shift  for  themselves.  Not  so  with  a  preju 
dice.  It  belongs  not  to  the  universal  order;  it 
js  his  very  own.  All  the  chivalry  of  his  nature  is 
enlisted  in  its  behalf.  He  is,  perhaps,  its  only 
defense  against  the  facts  of  an  unfriendly  world. 

We  cannot  get  along  without  making  allow 
ances  for  these  idiosyncrasies  of  judgment.  Con 
versation  is  impossible  where  each  person  insists 
on  going  back,  all  the  time,  to  first  principles, 
and  testing  everything  by  an  absolute  standard. 
With  a  person  who  is  incapable  of  changing  his 
point  of  view  we  cannot  converse ;  we  can  only 
listen  and  protest.  We  are  in  the  position  of  one 
who,  conscious  of  the  justice  of  his  cause,  attempts 
to  carry  on  a  discussion  over  the  telephone  with 
"Central."  He  only  hears  an  inhuman  buzzing 
sound  indicating  that  the  line  is  busy.  There  is 
nothing  to  do  but  to  "  hang  up  the  'phone." 

When  a  disputed  question  is  introduced,  one 
may  determine  the  true  conversationalist  by  ap 
plying  the  method  of  Solomon.  Let  it  be  pro 
posed  to  divide  the  subject  so  that  each  may  have 
his  own.  Your  eager  disputant  will  be  satisfied, 
your  genial  talker  is  aghast  at  the  proposition,  for 


52  AN   HOUR   WITH 

he  realizes  that  it  would  kill  the  conversation. 
Instead  of  holding  his  own,  he  awaits  develop 
ments.  He  is  in  a  mood  which  can  be  satisfied 
with  something  less  than  a  final  judgment.  It  is 
not  necessary  that  his  friend's  opinions  should 
be  just;  it  is  sufficient  that  they  are  characteristic. 
Whatever  turn  the  talk  may  take,  he  preserves 
an  easy  temper.  He  is  a  heresy-hunter,  —  not  of 
the  grim  kind  that  goes  hunting  with  a  gun;  he 
carries  only  a  camera.  If  he  stirs  up  a  strange 
doctrine  he  does  not  care  to  destroy  it.  When  he 
gets  a  snap-shot  at  human  nature  he  says, — 

Those  things  do  best  please  me 
That  befall  preposterously. 

An  English  gentleman  relates  a  conversation 
he  had  with  Prince  Bismarck.  The  prince  was 
inclined  to  take  a  pessimistic  view  of  the  English 
people.  He  thought  that  there  was  a  degeneration 
in  the  race,  which  he  attributed  to  the  growing 
habit  of  drinking  water.  "  Not  that  he  believed 
that  there  was  any  particular  virtue  per  se  inherent 
in  alcoholic  drink;  but  he  was  sorry  to  hear  that 
the  old  'three  bottle  men'  were  dying  out  and 
leaving  no  successors.  He  had  a  suspicion  that  it 
meant  shrinkage  in  those  qualities  of  the  English 


OUR   PREJUDICES  53 

which  had  made  them  what  they  were  in  the  past, 
and  for  which  he  had  always  felt  a  sincere  admi 


ration.'1 


It  would  have  been  very  easy  to  drift  into 
debate  over  this  proposition.  The  English  gentle 
man,  however,  defended  his  countrymen  more 
diplomatically.  "  I  replied  that  with  regard  to 
the  water-drinking  proclivities  of  my  countrymen 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  calumny  connected  with 
the  story.  It  is  true  that  a  certain  section  of  Eng 
lish  society  has  indeed  taken  to  water  as  a  bev 
erage.  But  to  argue  therefrom  that  the  English 
people  have  become  addicted  to  water  would  be 
to  draw  premature  conclusions  from  insufficient 
data.  In  this  way  I  was  able  to  calm  Prince  Bis 
marck's  fears  in  regard  to  what  the  future  might 
bring  forth,  and  our  conversation  reverted  to 
Royalty." 

Each  nation  has  its  own  set  of  preconceptions. 
We  must  take  them  altogether,  or  not  at  all. 
They  are  as  compact  and  as  natural  a  growth 
as  the  concentric  layers  of  an  onion.  Here  is  a 
sentence  from  Max  Miiller's  "  Autobiography," 
thrown  out  quite  incidentally.  He  has  been  telling 
how  strange  it  seemed,  when  first  coming  to  Ox- 


54  AN   HOUR    WITH 

ford,  to  find  that  the  students  got  along  without 
dueling.  Fighting  with  swords  seemed  to  him  the 
normal  method  of  developing  manliness,  though 
he  adds  that  in  the  German  universities  "  pistol 
duels  are  generally  preferred  by  theological  stu 
dents,  because  they  cannot  easily  get  a  living  if 
the  face  is  scarred  all  over." 

This  remark  must  be  taken  as  one  would  take 
a  slice  of  the  national  onion.  One  assumption  fits 
into  another.  To  an  Englishman  or  an  American 
there  is  an  incongruity  that  approaches  the  gro 
tesque,  —  because  our  prejudices  are  different. 
It  all  becomes  a  matter-of-fact  statement  when  we 
make  the  proper  assumptions  in  regard  to  dueling 
in  general  and  theological  duels  in  particular. 
Assuming  that  it  is  necessary  for  theological  stu 
dents  to  fight  duels,  and  that  the  congregations 
are  prejudiced  against  ministers  whose  faces  have 
been  slashed  by  swords,  what  is  left  for  the  poor 
theologues  but  pistols  *?  Their  method  may  seem 
more  dangerous  than  that  adopted  by  laymen,  but 
Max  Miiller  explains  that  the  danger  is  chiefly  to 
the  seconds. 

Individual  peculiarities  must  be  taken  into 
account  in  the  same  way.  Prince  Bismarck,  in 


OUR   PREJUDICES  55 

dining  with  the  Emperor,  inquired  the  name  of 
the  brand  of  champagne,  which  proved  to  be  a 
cheap  German  article.  "  The  Emperor  explained, 
4 1  drink  it  from  motives  of  economy,  as  I  have  a 
large  family ;  then  again  I  drink  it  from  patriotic 
motives/  Thereupon  I  said  to  the  Emperor, 
'  With  me,  your  Majesty,  patriotism  stops  short 
in  the  region  of  my  stomach.' ): 

It  is  evident  that  here  was  a  difference  not  to 
be  arbitrated  by  reason.  If  the  Emperor  could 
not  understand  the  gastronomic  limitations  to  the 
Chancellor's  patriotism,  neither  could  the  Chan 
cellor  enter  into  the  Emperor's  anxieties,  as  he 
economized  for  the  sake  of  his  large  family. 

One  cannot  but  wonder  at  the  temerity  of  a 
person  who  plunges  into  conversation  with  a 
stranger  without  any  preliminary  scouting  or 
making  sure  of  a  line  of  retreat.  Ordinary  pru 
dence  would  suggest  that  the  first  advances  should 
be  only  in  the  nature  of  a  reconnoissance  in  force. 
You  may  have  very  decided  prejudices  of  your 
own,  but  it  is  not  certain  that  they  will  fraternize 
with  those  of  your  new  acquaintance.  There  is 
danger  of  falling  into  an  ambush.  There  are  pain 
ful  occasions  when  we  remember  the  wisdom  of 


56  AN   HOUR   WITH 

the  Son  of  Sirach :  "  Many  have  fallen  by  the 
edge  of  the  sword,  but  not  so  many  as  have  fallen 
by  the  tongue."  The  mischief  of  it  is  that  the 
most  kindly  intent  will  not  save  us.  The  path  of 
the  lover  of  mankind  is  beset  by  difficulties  for 
which  he  is  not  prepared.  There  are  so  many  an 
tagonisms  that  are  unpredictable. 

When  Nehemiah  came  to  rebuild  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem  he  remarked  grimly,  "  When  Sanballat 
the  Horonite,  and  Tobiah  the  servant,  the  Am 
monite,  heard  of  it,  it  grieved  them  exceedingly 
that  there  was  come  a  man  to  seek  the  welfare  of 
the  children  of  Israel ;  "  and  the  trouble  was  that 
a  large  number  of  the  children  of  Israel  themselves 
seem  to  have  resented  the  interference  with  their 
habitual  misfortunes.  The  experience  of  Nehe 
miah  is  that  of  most  reformers.  One  would  sup 
pose  that  the  person  who  aims  at  the  greatest 
good  for  the  greatest  number  would  be  greeted 
with  instant  applause.  The  difficulty  is  that  the 
greatest  good  is  just  what  the  greatest  number 
will  not  tolerate.  One  does  not  need  to  believe 
in  human  depravity  to  recognize  the  prejudice 
which  most  persons  have  against  anything  which 
is  proposed  as  good  for  them.  The  most  success- 


OUR   PREJUDICES  57 

ful  philanthropists  are  those  who  most  skillfully 
conceal  their  benevolent  intent. 

In  Coleman's  "  Life  of  Charles  Reade  "  there  is 
a  paragraph  which  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  a  pre 
judice  that  has  resisted  the  efforts  of  the  most 
learned  men  to  eradicate  it.  An  incident  is  there 
recorded  that  took  place  when  Reade  was  a  fellow 
in  Magdalen  College.  "  Just  as  I  was  about  to 
terminate  my  term  of  office  (I  hope  with  credit 
to  myself  and  the  'Varsity),  an  untoward  incident 
occurred  which  embittered  my  relations  for  life 
with  two  very  distinguished  men.  Professor  Gold- 
win  Smith  and  his  friend  John  Conington,  who 
belonged  to  us,  had  attempted  to  inaugurate  a 
debating  society.  A  handful  of  unmannerly  young 
cubs,  resenting  the  attempt  to  teach  them  politi 
cal  economy,  ducked  poor  Conington  under  the 
college  pump." 

"  Resenting  the  attempt  to  teach  them  political 
economy  !  "  —  What  is  the  source  of  that  resent 
ment  ?  What  psychologist  has  fathomed  the  abyss 
of  the  dark  prejudice  which  the  natural  man  has 
against  those  who  would  improve  his  mind  ?  It 
is  a  feud  which  reaches  back  into  hoar  antiquity. 
Doubtless  the  accumulated  grievances  of  genera- 


58  AN   HOUR   WITH 

tions  of  schoolboys  have  intensified  the  feud,  but 
no  amelioration  of  educational  methods  has  put 
an  end  to  it.  In  the  most  successful  teacher  you 
may  detect  a  nervous  strain  like  that  which  the 
trainer  of  wild  beasts  in  the  arena  undergoes.  His 
is  a  perilous  position,  and  every  faculty  must  be 
on  the  alert  to  hold  the  momentary  ascendency. 
A  single  false  motion,  and  the  unmannerly  young 
cubs  would  be  upon  their  victim. 

Must  we  not  confess  that  this  irrational  resent 
ment  against  our  intellectual  benefactors  survives, 
in  spite  of  all  discipline,  into  mature  life  *?  We 
may  enlarge  the  area  of  our  teachableness,  but  there 
are  certain  subjects  in  regard  to  which  we  do  not 
care  to  be  set  right.  The  polite  conventionality 
according  to  which  a  person  is  supposed  to  know 
his  own  business  is  an  evidence  of  this  sensitive 
ness.  Of  course  the  assumption  is  not  justified  by 
facts.  A  man's  own  business  is  just  the  thing  he 
is  conscious  of  not  knowing,  and  he  would  give 
anything  in  a  quiet  way  to  find  out.  Yet  when 
a  candid  friend  Ventures  to  instruct  him,  the  old 
irrational  resentment  flashes  out.  What  we  call 
tact  is  the  ability  to  find  before  it  is  too  late  what 
it  is  that  our  friends  do  not  desire  to  learn  from 


OUR   PREJUDICES  59 

us.  It  is  the  art  of  withholding,  on  proper  occa 
sions,  information  which  we  are  quite  sure  would 
be  good  for  them. 

The  prejudice  against  our  intellectual  superiors, 
which  leads  us  to  take  their  well-meant  endeavors 
in  our  behalf  as  of  the  nature  of  personal  insults, 
is  matched  by  the  equally  irrational  repulsion 
which  many  superior  people  have  for  their  in 
feriors.  Nothing  can  be  more  illogical  than  the 
attitude  of  these  gifted  ones  who  use  their  gifts 
as  bludgeons  with  which  to  belabor  the  rest  of  us. 
When  we  read  the  writings  of  men  who  have 
a  stimulating  sense  of  their  own  genius,  we  are 
struck  by  their  nervous  irritability  whenever  they 
mention"  mediocrity."  The  greater  number  of  the 
quarrels  of  the  authors,  which  the  elder  Disraeli 
chronicled,  arose  from  the  fact  that  the  authors 
had  the  habit  of  accusing  one  another  of  this  vice. 
One  would  suppose  mediocrity  to  be  the  sum  of 
all  villainies,  and  that  the  mediocre  man  was  con 
tinually  plotting  in  the  night  watches  against  the 
innocent  man  of  genius;  and  yet  what  has  the 
mediocre  man  done  to  deserve  this  detestation  ? 
Poor  fellow,  he  has  no  malice  in  him  !  His  medi 
ocrity  is  only  an  afterthought.  He  has  done  his 


60  AN   HOUR   WITH 

level  best;  his  misfortune  is  that  several  million 
of  his  fellowmen  have  done  as  well. 

The  superior  man,  especially  if  his  eminence 
be  accidental,  is  likely  to  get  a  false  notion  of 
those  who  stand  on  the  level  below  him.  The 
biographer  of  an  English  dignitary  says  that  the 
subject  of  his  memoir  was  not  really  haughty, 
but  "  he  was  apt  to  be  prejudiced  against  any  one 
who  seemed  to  be  afraid  of  him."  This  is  a  not 
uncommon  kind  of  prejudice ;  and  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  it  is  unfounded.  The  great  man  should 
remember  that  most  of  those  whose  manners  seem 
unduly  respectful  mean  nothing  personal. 

As  great  Pompey  passes  through  the  streets  of 
Rome,  he  may  be  pardoned  for  thinking  meanly 
of  the  people.  They  appear  to  be  a  subservient 
lot,  with  no  proper  interests  of  their  own,  their 
happiness  dependent  on  his  passing  smile,  —  and 
he  knows  how  little  that  is  worth.  He  sees  them 
at  a  disadvantage.  Let  him  leave  his  triumphal 
chariot,  and,  in  the  guise  of  Third  Citizen,  fall 
into  friendly  chat  with  First  Citizen  and  Second 
Citizen,  and  his  prejudices  will  be  corrected.  He 
will  find  that  these  worthy  men  have  a  much 
more  independent  and  self-respecting  point  of 


OUR   PREJUDICES  61 

view  than  he  had  thought  possible.  They  are  out 
for  a  holiday ;  they  are  critics  of  a  spectacle,  easily 
pleased,  they  will  admit;  but  if  no  one  except 
Pompey  is  to  be  seen  to-day,  why  not  make  the 
most  of  him  ?  Pompey  or  Csesar,  it  matters  not ; 
"  the  play  's  the  thing." 

The  origin  of  some  of  our  prejudices  must  be 
sought  in  the  childhood  of  the  race.  There  are 
certain  opinions  which  have  come  down  from  the 
cave-dwellers  without  revision.  They  probably  at 
one  time  had  reasons  to  justify  them,  though  we 
have  no  idea  what  they  were.  There  are  others, 
which  seem  equally  ancient,  which  originated  in 
the  forgotten  experiences  of  our  own  childhood. 
The  prehistoric  age  of  myth  and  fable  does  not 
lie  far  behind  any  one  of  us.  It  is  as  if  Gulliver 
had  been  educated  in  Lilliput,  and,  while  he  had 
grown  in  stature,  had  never  quite  emancipated 
himself  from  the  Lilliputian  point  of  view.  The 
great  hulking  fellow  is  always  awkwardly  trying 
to  look  up  at  things  which  he  has  actually  out 
grown.  He  tries  to  make  himself  believe  that 
his  early  world  was  as  big  as  it  seemed.  Some 
times  he  succeeds  in  his  endeavors,  and  the  result 
is  a  curious  inversion  of  values. 


62  AN   HOUR   WITH 

Mr.  Morley,  in  speaking  of  Lord  Palmerston's 
foreign  policy,  says :  "  The  Sultan's  ability  to 
speak  French  was  one  of  the  odd  reasons  why 
Lord  Palmerston  was  sanguine  of  Turkish  civil 
ization."  This  association  of  ideas  in  the  mind 
of  the  Prime  Minister  does  seem  odd  till  we 
remember  that  before  Lord  Palmerston  was  in 
the  cabinet  he  was  in  the  nursery.  The  fugitive 
impressions  of  early  childhood  reappear  in  many 
curious  shapes.  Who  would  be  so  hard-hearted 
as  to  exorcise  these  guiltless  ghosts  ? 

Sometimes,  in  reopening  an  old  book  over 
which  long  ago  we  had  dreamed,  we  come  upon 
the  innocent  source  of  some  of  our  long-cherished 
opinions.  Such  discovery  I  made  in  the  old 
Family  Bible  when  opening  at  the  pages  inserted 
by  the  publisher  between  the  Old  Testament  and 
the  Apocrypha.  On  many  a  Sunday  afternoon 
my  stated  hour  of  Bible  reading  was  diversi 
fied  by  excursions  into  these  uncanonical  pages. 
There  was  a  sense  of  stolen  pleasure  in  the  heap 
of  miscellaneous  secularities.  It  was  like  finding 
under  the  church  roof  a  garret  in  which  one  might 
rummage  at  will.  Here  were  tables  of  weights  and 
measures,  explanations  about  shekels,  suggestions 


OUR   PREJUDICES  63 

in  regard  to  the  probable  length  of  a  cubit,  cu 
rious  calculations  as  to  the  number  of  times  the 
word  "  and  "  occurred  in  the  Bible.  Here,  also, 
was  a  mysterious  "  Table  of  Offices  and  Condi 
tions  of  Men." 

I  am  sure  that  my  scheme  of  admirations,  my 
conception  of  the  different  varieties  of  human 
grandeur,  has  been  colored  by  that  "  Table  of 
Offices  and  Conditions  of  Men."  It  was  my 
"Social  Register"  and  Burke's  "Peerage"  and 
"  Who 's  Who  2  "  all  in  one.  It  was  a  formidable 
list,  beginning  with  the  patriarchs,  and  ending 
with  the  deacons.  The  dignity  of  the  deacon  I 
already  knew,  for  my  uncle  was  one,  but  his 
function  was  vastly  exalted  when  I  thought  of 
him  in  connection  with  the  mysterious  person 
ages  who  went  before.  There  was  the  "  Tirshatha, 
a  governor  appointed  by  the  kings  of  Assyria,"  — 
evidently  a  very  great  man.  Then  there  were  the 
"Nethinims,  whose  duty  it  was  to  draw  water 
and  to  cleave  wood."  When  I  was  called  upon 
to  perform  similar  services  I  ventured  to  think 
that  I  myself,  had  I  lived  in  better  days,  might 
have  been  recognized  as  a  sort  of  Nethinim. 

Here,  also,  I  learned  the  exact  age  of  the  world, 


64  AN   HOUR   WITH 

not  announced  arbitrarily,  but  with  the  several 
items  all  set  down,  so  that  I  might  have  verified 
them  for  myself,  had  I  been  mathematically 
gifted.  "  The  whole  sum  and  number  of  years 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world  unto  the  present 
year  of  our  Lord  1815  is  5789  years,  six  months, 
and  the  said  odd  ten  days."  I  have  no  prejudice 
in  favor  of  retaining  that  chronology  as  far  as  the 
thousands  are  concerned.  Five  thousand  years  is 
one  way  of  saying  it  was  a  very  long  time.  If  the 
geologists  prefer  to  convey  the  same  idea  by  call 
ing  it  millions,  I  am  content ;  but  I  should  hate 
to  give  up  the  "  said  odd  ten  days." 

From  the  same  Table  of  Offices  and  Condi 
tions  I  imbibed  my  earliest  philosophical  preju 
dices  ;  for  there  I  learned  the  difference  between 
the  Stoics  and  the  Epicureans. 

The  Stoics  were  described  succinctly  as  "  those 
who  denied  the  liberty  of  the  will."  Just  what 
this  might  mean  was  not  clear,  but  it  had  an  ugly 
sound.  The  Stoics  were  evidently  contentious 
persons.  On  the  other  hand,  alf  that  was  revealed 
concerning  the  Epicureans  was  that  they  "  placed 
all  happiness  in  pleasure."  This  seemed  an  emi 
nently  sensible  idea.  I  could  not  but  be  favorably 


OUR   PREJUDICES  65 

disposed  toward  people  who  managed  to  get 
happiness  out  of  their  pleasures. 

To  the  excessive  brevity  of  these  definitions  I 
doubtless  owe  an  erroneous  impression  concern 
ing  that  ancient,  and  now  almost  extinct  people, 
the  Samaritans.  The  name  has  had  to  me  a  sug 
gestion  of  a  sinister  kind  of  scholarship,  as  if  the 
Samaritans  had  been  connected  with  some  of  the 
black  arts.  Yet  I  know  nothing  in  their  history 
to  justify  this  impression.  The  source  of  the  error 
was  revealed  when  I  turned  again  to  the  "  Table 
of  Offices  and  Conditions  of  Men  "  and  read  once 
more,  "  Samaritans,  mongrel  professors,  half  hea 
then  and  half  Jew."  How  was  I  to  know  that  the 
reference  was  to  professors  of  religion,  and  not  to 
professors  of  the  arts  and  sciences  *? 

As  there  are  prejudices  which  begin  in  verbal 
misunderstandings,  so  there  are  those  which  are 
nourished  by  the  accidental  collocation  of  words. 
A  noun  is  known  by  the  adjectives  it  keeps. 
When  we  hear  of  dull  conservatism,  rabid  radi 
calism,  selfish  culture,  timid  piety,  smug  respecta 
bility,  we  receive  unfavorable  impressions.  We 
do  not  always  stop  to  consider  that  all  that  is 
objectionable  really  inheres  in  the  qualifying 


66  AN   HOUR   WITH 

words.  In  a  well-regulated  mind,  after  every  such 
verbal  turn  there  should  be  a  call  to  change  part 
ners.  Let  every  noun  take  a  new  adjective,  and 
every  verb  a  new  adverb. 

Clever  Bohemians,  having  heard  so  much  of 
"  smug  respectability,"  take  a  dislike  to  respecta 
bility.  But  some  of  the  smuggest  persons  are  not 
respectable  at  all,  —  far  from  it !  Serenely  satisfied 
with  their  own  irresponsibility,  they  look  patron 
izingly  upon  the  struggling  world  that  owes  them 
a  living.  I  remember  a  visit  from  one  of  these 
gentry.  He  called  to  indicate  his  willingness  to 
gratify  my  charitable  impulses  by  accepting  from 
me  a  small  loan.  If  I  did  not  believe  the  story  of 
his  frequent  incarcerations  I  might  consult  the 
chaplain  of  the  House  of  Correction.  He  evi 
dently  considered  that  he  had  a  mission.  He  went 
about  offering  his  hard  and  impenitent  heart  as 
a  stone  on  which  the  philanthropists  might  whet 
their  zeal.  Smug  respectability,  forsooth ! 

From  force  of  habit  we  speak  of  the  "  earnest " 
reformer,  and  we  are  apt  to  be  intolerant  of  his 
lighter  moods.  Wilberforce  encountered  this  pre 
judice  when  he  enlivened  one  of  his  speeches 
with  a  little  mirth.  His  opponent  seized  the 


OUR   PREJUDICES  67 

opportunity  to  speak  scornfully  of  the  honor 
able  gentleman's  "religious  facetiousness."  Wil- 
berforce  replied  very  justly  that  "a  religious  man 
might  sometimes  be  facetious,  seeing  that  the 
irreligious  did  not  always  escape  being  dull." 

An  instance  of  the  growth  of  a  verbal  prejudice 
is  that  which  in  certain  circles  resulted  in  the 
preaching  against  what  was  called  "  mere  moral 
ity."  What  the  preachers  had  in  mind  was  true 
enough.  They  objected  to  mere  morality,  as  one 
might  say,  "  Mere  life  is  not  enough  to  satisfy  us, 
we  must  have  something  to  live  on."  They  would 
have  more  than  a  bare  morality.  It  should  be 
clothed  with  befitting  spiritual  raiment.  But  the 
parson's  zeal  tended  to  outrun  his  discretion,  and 
forgetting  that  the  true  object  of  his  attack  was 
the  mereness  and  not  the  morality,  he  gave  the 
impression  that  the  Moral  Man  was  the  great 
enemy  of  the  faith.  At  last  the  parishioner  would 
turn  upon  his  accuser.  "  You  need  not  point  the 
finger  of  scorn  at  me.  What  if  I  have  done  my 
duty  to  the  best  of  my  ability !  You  should  not 
twit  on  facts.  If  it  comes  to  that,  you  are  not  in 
a  position  to  throw  stones.  If  I  am  a  moral  man, 
you  're  another." 


68  AN    HOUR   WITH 

There  are  prejudices  which  are  the  result  of 
excessive  fluency  of  speech.  The  flood  of  word? 
sweeps  away  all  the  natural  distinctions  of 
thought.  All  things  are  conceived  of  under  two 
categories,  —  the  Good  and  the  Bad.  If  one  ill 
is  admitted,  it  is  assumed  that  all  the  rest  follow 
in  its  train.  There  are  persons  who  cannot  men 
tion  "  the  poor  "  without  adding,  "  the  weak,  the 
wretched,  the  oppressed,  the  downtrodden,  the 
suffering,  the  sick,  the  sinful,  the  erring,"  and  so 
on  to  the  end  of  the  catalogue.  This  is  very  dis 
concerting  to  a  young  fellow  who,  while  in  the 
best  of  health  and  spirits,  is  conscious  that  he  is 
rather  poor.  He  would  willingly  admit  his  pov 
erty  were  it  not  for  the  fear  of  being  smothered 
under  the  wet  blanket  of  universal  commisera 
tion. 

When  the  category  of  the  Good  is  adopted 
with  the  same  undiscriminating  ardor  the  results 
are  equally  unfortunate.  We  are  prejudiced 
against  certain  persons  whom  we  have  never 
met.  We  have  heard  nothing  but  good  of  them, 
and  we  have  heard  altogether  too  much  of  that. 
Their  characters  have  been  painted  in  glaring 
virtues  that  swear  at  one  another.  We  are  sure 


OUR   PREJUDICES  69 

that  we  should  not  like  such  a  combination  of 
unmitigated  excellencies,  for  human  nature  ab 
hors  a  paragon.  And  yet  the  too  highly  com 
mended  person  may,  in  reality,  not  be  a  paragon 
at  all,  but  a  very  decent  fellow.  He  would  quickly 
rise  in  our  regard  were  it  not  for  the  eulogies 
which  hang  like  millstones  around  his  neck. 

It  is  no  easy  thing  to  praise  another  in  such  a 
way  as  to  leave  a  good  impression  on  the  mind 
of  the  hearer.  A  virtue  is  not  for  all  times.  When 
a  writer  is  too  highly  commended  for  being  labo 
rious  and  conscientious  we  are  not  inclined  to 
buy  his  book.  His  conscience  doth  make  cowards 
of  us  all.  It  may  be  proper  to  recommend  a  can 
didate  for  a  vacant  pulpit  as  indefatigable  in  his 
pastoral  labors ;  but  were  you  to  add,  in  the  good 
ness  of  your  heart,  that  he  was  equally  indefati 
gable  as  a  preacher,  he  would  say,  "  An  enemy 
hath  done  this."  For  the  congregation  would  sus 
pect  that  his  freedom  from  fatigue  in  the  pulpit 
was  likely  to  be  gained  at  their  expense. 

The  prejudices  which  arise  from  verbal  associa 
tion  are  potent  in  preventing  any  impartial  judg 
ment  of  men  whose  names  have  become  house 
hold  words.  The  man  whose  name  has  become 


70  AN   HOUR   WITH 

the  designation  of  a  party  or  a  theory  is  the  help 
less  victim  of  his  own  reputation.  Who  takes 
the  trouble  to  pry  into  the  personal  opinions  of 
John  Calvin  *?  Of  course  they  were  Calvinistic. 
When  we  hear  of  the  Malthusian  doctrine  about 
population,  we  picture  its  author  as  a  cold 
blooded,  economical  Herod,  who  would  gladly 
have  ordered  a  massacre  of  the  innocents.  Let 
no  one  tell  us  that  the  Reverend  Richard  Mal- 
thus  was  an  amiable  clergyman,  who  was  greatly 
beloved  by  the  small  parish'  to  which  he  minis 
tered.  In  spite  of  all  his  church  wardens  might 
say,  we  would  not  trust  our  children  in  the  hands 
of  a  man  who  had  suggested  that  there  might  be 
too  many  people  in  the  world.  But  in  such  cases 
we  should  remember  that  a  man's  theories  do  not 
always  throw  light  upon  his  character.  When  a 
distinguished  physician  has  a  disease  named  after 
him,  it  is  understood  that  the  disease  is  the  one 
he  discovered,  and  not  the  one  he  died  of. 

When  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  startled  the 
world,  many  pious  imaginations  conceived  defi 
nite  pictures  of  the  author  of  it.  These  pictures 
had  but  one  thing  in  common,  —  their  striking 
unlikeness  to  the  quiet  gentleman  who  had  made 


OUR   PREJUDICES  71 

all  this  stir.  By  the  way,  Darwin  was  the  inno 
cent  victim  of  two  totally  disconnected  lines  of 
prejudice.  After  he  had  outlived  the  disfavor  of 
the  theologians,  he  incurred  the  contempt  of  the 
apostles  of  Culture;  all  because  of  his  modest 
confession  that  he  did  not  enjoy  poetry  as  much 
as  he  once  did.  Unfortunately,  his  scientific  habit 
of  mind  led  him  to  say  that  he  suspected  that  he 
might  be  suffering  from  atrophy  of  the  imagina 
tive  faculty.  Instantly  every  literal-minded  reader 
and  reviewer  exclaimed,  "  How  dreadful !  What 
a  judgment  on  him  !  "  Yet,  when  we  stop  to 
think  about  it,  the  affliction  is  not  so  uncommon 
as  to  call  for  astonishment.  Many  persons  suffer 
from  it  who  are  not  addicted  to  science. 

After  all,  these  are  harmless  prejudices.  They 
are  content  with  their  own  little  spheres ;  they  ask 
only  to  live  and  let  live.  There  are  others,  how 
ever,  that  are  militantly  imperialistic.  They  are 
ambitious  to  become  world  powers.  Such  are 
those  which  grow  out  of  differences  in  politics, 
in  religion,  and  in  race. 

Political  animosities  have  doubtless  been  miti 
gated  by  freer  social  intercourse,  which  gives  more 


72  AN   HOUR   WITH 

opportunities  for  meeting  on  neutral  ground.  It 
is  only  during  a  heated  campaign  that  we  think 
of  all  of  the  opposing  party  as  rascals.  There  is 
time  between  elections  to  make  the  necessary 
exceptions.  It  is  customary  to  make  allowance 
for  a  certain  amount  of  partisan  bias,  just  as  the 
college  faculty  allows  a  student  a  certain  num 
ber  of  "  cuts."  It  is  a  just  recognition  of  human 
weakness. 

Our  British  cousins  go  farther,  and  provide 
means  for  the  harmless  gratification  of  natural 
prejudices.  There  are  certain  questions  on  which 
persons  are  expected  to  express  themselves  with 
considerable  fervor,  and  without  troubling  them 
selves  as  to  the  reasonableness  of  their  contention. 
In  a  volume  of  published  letters  I  was  pleased 
to  read  one  from  a  member  of  the  aristocracy. 
He  had  been  indulging  in  trivial  personalities, 
when  suddenly  he  broke  off  with  "  Now  I  must 
go  to  work  on  the  Wife's  Sister's  Question ;  I 
intend  to  make  a  good  stout  protest  against  that 
rascally  bill !  "  There  is  no  such  exercise  for  the 
moral  nature  as  a  good  stout  protest.  We  Amer 
icans  take  our  exercise  spasmodically.  Instead 
of  going  about  it  regularly,  we  wait  for  some 


OUR   PREJUDICES  73 

extraordinary  occasion.  We  make  it  a  point  of 
sportsmanship  to  shoot  our  grievance  on  the 
wing,  and  we  are  nervously  anxious  lest  it  get 
out  of  range  before  we  have  time  to  take  aim. 

Not  so  the  protesting  Briton.  He  approves  of 
the  answer  of  Jonah  when  he  was  asked,  "  Doest 
thou  well  to  be  angry  for  the  gourd  ?  "  Jonah, 
without  any  waste  of  words,  replied,  "  I  do  well 
to  be  angry."  When  the  Englishman  feels  that 
it  is  well  for  him  to  be  angry,  he  finds  constitu 
tional  means  provided.  Parliament  furnishes  a 
number  of  permanent  objects  for  his  disapproval. 
Whenever  he  feels  disposed  he  can  make  a  good 
stout  protest,  feeling  assured  that  his  indigna 
tion  is  well  bestowed.  He  has  such  satisfaction  as 
that  which  came  to  Mr.  Micawber  in  reading  his 
protest  against  the  villainies  of  Uriah  Heep : 
"  Much  afflicted  but  still  intensely  enjoying  him 
self,  Mr.  Micawber  folded  up  the  letter  and 
handed  it  with  a  bow  to  my  aunt,  as  something 
she  might  like  to  keep." 

These  stout-hearted  people  have  learned  not 
only  how  to  take  their  pleasures  sadly,  but,  what 
is  more  to  the  purpose,  how  to  take  their  sad 
nesses  pleasantly.  We  Americans  have,  here, 


74  AN   HOUR    WITH 

something  to  learn.  We  should  get  along  better 
if  we  had  a  number  of  argument-proof  questions 
like  that  in  regard  to  marriage  with  the  deceased 
wife's  sister  which  could  be  warranted  to  recur  at 
regular  intervals.  They  could  be  set  apart  as  a 
sort  of  public  playground  for  the  prejudices.  It 
would  at  least  keep  the  prejudices  out  of  mis 
chief. 

Religious  prejudice  has  an  air  of  singularity. 
The  singular  thing  is  that  there  should  be  such 
a  variety.  If  we  identify  religion  with  the  wis 
dom  that  is  from  above,  and  which  is  "  first  pure, 
then  peaceable,  easy  to  be  entreated,  without 
partiality,"  it  is  hard  to  see  where  the  prejudice 
comes  in.  Religious  prejudice  is  a  compound  of 
religion  and  several  decidedly  earthly  passions. 
The  combination  produces  a  peculiarly  danger 
ous  explosive.  The  religious  element  has  the 
same  part  in  it  that  the  innocent  glycerine  has  in 
nitro-glycerine.  This  latter,  we  are  told,  is  "  a 
compound  produced  by  the  action  of  a  mixture 
of  strong  nitric  and  sulphuric  acids  on  glycerine 
at  low  temperatures."  It  is  observable  that  in  the 
making  of  religious  prejudice  the  religion  is  kept 
at  a  very  low  temperature,  indeed. 


OUR  PREJUDICES  75 

We  are  at  present  in  an  era  of  good  feeling. 
Not  only  is  there  an  interchange  of  kindly  offices 
between  members  of  different  churches,  but  one 
may  detect  a  tendency  to  extend  the  same  toler 
ance  to  the  opposing  party  in  the  same  church. 
This  is  a  real  advance,  for  it  is  always  more  diffi 
cult  to  do  justice  to  those  who  differ  from  us 
slightly  than  to  those  whose  divergence  is  funda 
mental.  To  love  our  friends  is  a  work  of  nature, 
to  love  our  enemies  is  a  work  of  grace ;  the 
troublesome  thing  is  to  get  on  with  those  who 
are  "betwixt  and  between."  In  such  a  case  we 
are  likely  to  fall  between  nature  and  grace  as  be 
tween  two  stools.  Almost  any  one  can  be  mag 
nanimous  in  great  affairs,  but  to  be  magnanimous 
in  trifles  is  like  trying  to  use  a  large  screw-driver 
to  turn  a  small  screw. 

In  a  recently  published  correspondence  be 
tween  dignitaries  of  the  Church  of  England  I 
find  many  encouraging  symptoms.  The  writers 
exhibit  a  desire  to  do  justice  not  only  to  the 
moral,  but  also  to  the  intellectual,  gifts  of  those 
who  differ  from  them  even  slightly.  There  is,  of 
course,  enough  of  the  old  Adam  remaining  to 
make  their  judgments  on  one  another  interesting 


76  AN   HOUR   WITH 

reading.  It  is  pleasant  to  see  brethren  dwelling 
together  in  unity,  —  a  pleasure  seldom  prolonged 
to  the  point  of  satiety.  Thus  the  Dean  of  Nor 
wich  writes  to  the  Dean  of  Durham  in  regard  to 
Dean  Stanley.  Alluding  to  an  opinion,  in  a  pre 
vious  letter,  in  regard  to  Archbishop  Tait,  the 
writer  says  :  "  I  confess  I  should  n't  have  ranked 
him  among  the  great  men  of  the  day.  Of  our 
contemporaries  I  should  have  assigned  that  rank, 
without  hesitation,  to  little  Stan,  though  I  quite 
think  he  did  more  mischief  in  our  church  and  to 
religion  than  most  men  have  it  in  them  to  do. 
Still  I  should  say  that  little  Stan  was  a  great  man 
in  his  way."  There  you  may  see  a  mind  that  has, 
with  considerable  difficulty,  uprooted  a  prejudice, 
though  you  may  still  perceive  the  place  where 
the  prejudice  used  to  be. 

While  the  methods  of  the  exact  sciences  have 
had  a  discouraging  effect  on  partisan  and  sectarian 
prejudices,  they  seem,  for  the  moment,  to  have 
given  new  strength  to  those  which  are  the  result 
of  differences  in  race.  Time  was  when  Anti-Sem 
itism  derived  its  power  from  religious  rancor. 
The  cradle  hymn  which  the  Puritan  mother  sang 
began  sweetly,  — 


OUR   PREJUDICES  77 

Hush,  my  dear,  lie  still  and  slumber  ! 
Holy  angels  guard  thy  bed  ! 

But  after  a  while  the  mother  thinks  of  the  wicked 
ness  of  the  Jews :  — 

Yet  to  read  the  shameful  story 

How  the  Jews  abused  their  King, 

How  they  served  the  Lord  of  Glory, 
Makes  me  angry  while  I  sing. 

In  these  days,  the  Anti-Semites  are  not  so 
likely  to  be  angry  while  they  sing,  as  while  they 
cast  up  their  accounts. 

The  natural  sciences  discriminate  between 
classes  rather  than  between  individuals.  Sociology 
deals  with  groups,  and  not  with  persons.  Anthro 
pology  acquaints  us  with  the  aboriginal  and  un- 
moralized  man.  It  emphasizes  the  solidarity  of 
the  clan  and  the  persistence  of  the  cult.  Experi 
mental  psychology  is  at  present  interested  in  the 
sub-conscious  and  instinctive  life.  For  its  purpose 
it  treats  a  man  as  a  series  of  nervous  reactions. 
Human  history  is  being  rewritten  as  a  branch  of 
Natural  History.  Eliminating  the  part  played  by 
personal  will,  it  exhibits  an  age-long  warfare  be 
tween  nations  and  races. 


78  AN   HOUR  WITH 

This  is  all  very  well  so  long  as  we  remember 
what  it  is  that  we  are  studying.  Races,  cults,  and 
social  groups  exist  and  have  their  history.  There 
is  no  harm  in  defining  the  salient  characteristics 
of  a  race,  and  saying  that,  on  the  whole,  one  race 
is  inferior  to  another.  The  difficulty  comes  when 
this  rough  average  is  made  the  dead  line  beyond 
which  an  individual  is  not  allowed  to  pass. 

In  our  Comedy  of  Errors,  which  is  always  slip 
ping  into  tragedy,  there  are  two  Dromios  on  the 
stage,  —  the  Race  and  the  Individual.  The  Race 
is  an  abstraction  which  can  bear  any  amount  of 
punishment  without  flinching.  You  may  say  any 
thing  you  please  about  it  and  not  go  far  wrong. 
It  is  like  criticising  a  composite  photograph. 
There  is  nothing  personal  about  it.  Who  is 
offended  at  the  caricatures  of  Brother  Jonathan 
or  of  John  Bull  ?  We  recognize  certain  persist 
ent  national  traits,  but  we  also  recognize  the  ele 
ment  of  good-humored  exaggeration.  The  Jew, 
the  Slav,  the  Celt,  the  Anglo-Saxon  have  existed 
for  ages.  Each  has  admired  himself,  and  been 
correspondingly  disliked  by  others.  Even  the 
Negro  as  a  racial  abstraction  is  not  sensitive.  You 
may,  if  you  will,  take  up  the  text,  so  much  quoted 


OUR  PREJUDICES  79 

a  generation  ago,  "  Cursed  be  Canaan ;  a  servant 
of  servants  shall  he  be.  ...  God  shall  enlarge 
Japheth,  and  he  shall  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Shem ; 
and  Canaan  shall  be  his  servant."  Dromio  Africa- 
nus  listens  unmoved  to  the  exegesis  of  Petroleum 
V.  Nasby  and  his  compeers  at  the  Crossroads : 
"God  cust  Canaan,  and  sed  he  shood  be  a  ser 
vant  forever.  Did  he  mean  us  to  pay  him  wages'? 
Not  eny :  for  ef  he  hed  he  wood  hev  ordered 
our  tastes  and  habits  so  es  we  shood  hev  hed 
the  wherewithal  to  do  it." 

The  impassive  Genius  of  Africa  answers  the 
Anglo-Saxon :  "  If  it  pleases  you  to  think  that 
your  prejudice  against  me  came  out  of  the  Ark, 
so  be  it.  If  you  find  it  agreeable  to  identify  your 
self  with  Japheth  who  shall  providentially  be 
enlarged,  I  may  as  well  be  Canaan." 

So  long  as  the  doctrinaires  of  the  Crossroads 
are  dealing  only  with  highly  generalized  concep 
tions  no  harm  is  done.  But  now  another  Dromio 
appears.  He  is  not  a  race;  he  is  a  person.  He 
has  never  come  that  way  before,  and  he  is  bewil 
dered  by  what  he  sees  and  hears.  Immediately  he 
is  beset  by  those  who  accuse  him  of  crimes  which 
some  one  who  looks  like  him  has  committed.  He 


8o  AN   HOUR   WITH 

is  beaten  because  he  does  not  know  his  place ; 
how  can  he  know  it,  stumbling  as  he  does  upon 
a  situation  for  which  he  is  altogether  unprepared  ? 
It  is  an  awkward  predicament,  this  of  being  born 
into  the  world  as  a  living  soul.  Under  the  most 
favorable  conditions  it  is  hard  for  the  new  arrival 
to  find  himself,  and  adjust  himself  to  his  en 
vironment.  But  this  victim  of  mistaken  identity 
finds  that  he  has  been  judged  and  condemned 
already.  When  he  innocently  tries  to  make  the 
most  of  himself  a  great  uproar  is  created.  What 
right  has  he  to  interfere  with  the  preconceived 
opinions  of  his  betters  ?  They  understand  him, 
for  have  they  not  known  him  for  many  genera 
tions  ? 

Poor  man  Dromio!  Whether  he  have  a  black 
skin  or  a  yellow,  and  whatever  be  the  racial  type 
which  his  features  suggest,  the  trouble  is  the  same. 
He  is  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  our  stupidity. 
He  suffers  because  of  our  mental  color-blindness, 
which  prevents  our  distinguishing  persons.  We 
see  only  groups,  and  pride  ourselves  on  our  de 
fective  vision.  By  and  by  we  may  learn  to  be  a 
little  ashamed  of  our  crudely  ambitious  generali 
zations.  A  finer  gift  is  the  ability  to  know  a  man 


OUR  PREJUDICES  81 

when  we  see  him.  It  may  be  that  Nature  is 
"careful  of  the  type,"  and  "careless  of  the  single 
life."  If  that  be  so,  it  may  be  the  part  of  wisdom 
for  us  to  give  up  some  of  our  anxieties  about  the 
type,  knowing  that  Nature  will  take  care  of  that. 
Such  relief  from  excessive  cosmic  responsibility 
will  give  us  much  more  time  for  our  proper  work, 
which  is  to  deal  justly  with  each  single  life. 


HOW   TO   KNOW   THE  FALLACIES 


MY  friend  Scholasticus  was  in  a  bad  way. 
He  had  been  educated  before  the  elective 
system  came  in,  and  he  had  a  pathetic  veneration 
for  the  old  curriculum.  It  was  to  him  the  sacred 
ark,  now,  alas,  carried  away  into  the  land  of  the 
Philistines.  He  cherished  it  as  a  sort  of  creed 
containing  the  things  surely  to  be  learned  by  a 
gentleman,  and  whoso  hath  not  learned  these 
things,  let  him  be  anathema.  In  meeting  the 
present-day  undergraduates,  it  was  hard  to  say 
which  amazed  him  most,  the  things  they  knew 
or  the  things  they  did  not  know.  Perhaps  the 
new  knowledge  seemed  to  him  the  more  uncouth. 
'*  The  intellectual  world,"  he  would  say,  "  is 
topsy-turvy.  What  is  to  be  expected  of  a  gener 
ation  that  learns  to  write  before  it  learns  to  read, 
and  learns  to  read  before  it  learns  to  spell,  —  or 
rather  which  never  does  learn  to  spell.  Everything 
begins  wrong  end  foremost.  In  my  day  small  chil- 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES    83 

dren  were  supposed  to  be  '  pleased  with  a  rattle, 
tickled  with  a  straw,5  until  such  time  as  they  were 
old  enough  to  be  put  to  stiff  work  on  the  First 
Reader.  Nowadays,  the  babes  begin  with  the 
esoteric  doctrine  of  their  playthings.  Even  the 
classics  of  infancy  are  rationalized.  I  was  about  to 
buy  a  copy  of  '  Mother  Hubbard  and  her  Dog ' 
for  a  dear  young  friend,  when  I  discovered  that  it 
was  a  revised  version.  The  most  stirring  incident 
was  given  thus,  — 

•       She  went  to  the  baker's  to  buy  some  bread, 
And  when  she  came  back  the  dog  looked  dead. 

That  was  n't  the  way  the  tale  was  told  to  me.  I 
was  told  that  the  poor  dog  was  dead,  and  I  be 
lieved  it.  That  did  n't  prevent  my  believing  a 
little  while  after  that  the  doggie  was  dancing  a  jig. 
I  took  it  for  granted  that  that  was  the  way  dogs 
did  in  Mother  Hubbard's  day.  Nowadays,  the 
critics  in  bib  and  tucker  insist  that  the  story  must 
conform  to  what  they  have  prematurely  learned 
about  the  invariable  laws  of  nature. 

"  I  should  n't  mind  this  if  they  kept  on  reason 
ing.  But  it 's  a  false  start.  After  the  wide  gen 
eralizations  of  infancy  have  been  forgotten,  the 
youth  begins  to  specialize.  He  takes  a  small  slice 


84    HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

of  a  subject,  ignoring  its  more  obvious  features 
and  its  broader  outlines.  He  has  a  contempt  for 
general  ideas.  What  we  studied,  he  takes  for 
granted.  He 's  very  observing,  but  he  does  n't 
put  two  and  two  together.  There  they  stand  in 
his  mind,  two  separate  ideas,  politely  ignoring  one 
another,  because  they  have  not  been  properly  in 
troduced.  The  result  of  all  this  is  evident  enough. 
How  many  people  do  you  come  across  with 
whom  it  is  a  pleasure  to  hold  an  argument  ?  Not 
many  !  They  don't  know  the  rules  of  the  game. 
You  can't  enter  a  drawing-room  without  hearing 
questions  discussed  in  a  way  possible  only  to  those 
whose  early  education  in  the  art  of  reasoning  had 
been  neglected.  The  chances  are  that  every  one 
of  the  fallacies  we  learned  about  in  Whately  could 
appear  in  good  society  without  anybody  being 
able  to  call  them  by  their  Latin  names. 

"  <  Does  n't  this  follow  from  that  ? '  the  facile 
talker  asks,  as  if  that  were  all  that  is  necessary  to 
constitute  a  valid  argument.  Of  course  it  follows ; 
his  assertions  follow  one  another  like  a  flock  of 
sheep.  But  what  short  work  our  old  Professor 
would  have  made  with  these  plausible  sequences ! 

"  What  a  keen  scent  the  old  man  had  for  fal- 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES    85 

lacies !  Even  when  the  conclusion  was  obviously 
sound,  he  insisted  that  we  should  come  by  it  hon 
estly.  He  would  never  admit  that  in  such  mat 
ters  the  end  justifies  the  means.  I  remember  his 
merciless  exposure  of  the  means  by  which  some 
unscrupulous  metaphysicians  accumulated  their 
intellectual  property.  His  feeling  about  the  '  Un 
distributed  Middle '  was  much  the  same  as  that 
of  Henry  George  about  the  '  Unearned  Incre 
ment.'  How  he  used  to  get  after  the  moonshiners 
who  were  distilling  arguments  by  the  illicit  pro 
cess  of  the  major  term!  In  these  days  the  illicit 
process  goes  on  openly.  The  growth  of  the  real 
sciences  does  not  in  the  least  discourage  the  pseudo- 
sciences.  It  rather  seems  to  stimulate  them. 

"  For  many  persons,  a  newly  discovered  fact  is 
simply  a  spring-board  from  which  they  dive  into 
a  bottomless  sea  of  speculation.  They  pride 
themselves  on  their  ability  to  jump  at  conclusions, 
forgetting  that  jumping  is  an  exercise  in  which 
the  lower  orders  excel  their  betters.  If  an  ele 
phant  could  jump  as  far,  in  proportion  to  his 
weight,  as  a  flea,  there  would  be  no  holding  him 
on  the  planet.  Every  new  discovery  is  followed 
by  a  dozen  extravagances,  engineered  by  the  Get- 


86    HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

wise-quick  people.  There  is  always  some  Young 
Napoleon  of  Philosophy  who  undertakes  to  cor 
ner  the  truth-market.  It 's  like  what  happened  at 
the  opening  of  Oklahoma  Territory.  Before  the 
day  set  by  the  government  when  they  all  were  to 
start  fair  in  their  race  for  farms,  a  band  of  adven 
turers  called  '  Sooners '  smuggled  themselves 
across  the  line.  When  the  bona  fide  settler  ar 
rived  on  his  quarter-section,  he  found  an  impu 
dent  Sooner  in  possession.  You  can't  find  any 
fresh  field  of  investigation  that  is  n't  claimed  by 
these  Sooners.  It  all  comes  because  people  are 
no  longer  educated  logically." 

When  Scholasticus  was  in  this  mood,  it  was 
difficult  to  do  anything  with  him.  It  was  in  vain 
to  tell  him  that  he  was  narrow,  for,  like  all  nar 
row  men,  he  took  that  as  a  compliment.  It  is 
the  broad  way,  he  reminded  me,  that  leads  to  in 
tellectual  destruction.  Still,  I  attempted  to  bring 
him  to  a  better  frame  of  mind. 

"  Scholasticus,"  said  I,  "  the  old  order  changes. 
You  are  a  survivor  of  another  period.  You  were 
educated  according  to  a  logical  order.  You 
learned  to  spell  out  of  a  Spelling  Book,  and  to 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES    87 

read  out  of  a  Reader,  and  to  write  not  by  fol 
lowing  the  dictates  of  your  own  conscience,  but 
by  following  the  copy  in  a  Copy  Book;  and 
you  learned  to  speak  correctly  by  committing  to 
memory  the  rules  of  grammar  and  afterwards  the 
exceptions." 

"  And  it  was  a  good  way,  too,"  interrupted 
Scholasticus.  "  It  gave  us  a  respect  for  law  and 
order,  to  learn  the  rules  and  to  abide  by  them. 
Now,  I  understand,  they  don't  have  grammar,  but 
4  language  work.'  The  idea  is,  I  suppose,  that  if 
the  pupils  practice  the  exceptions  they  need  n't 
bother  about  the  rules.  When  I  studied  geogra 
phy,  we  began  with  a  definition  of  the  word  geo 
graphy,  after  which  we  were  told  that  the  earth 
is  a  planet,  and  that  three  fourths  of  its  surface 
is  water,  a  fact  which  I  have  never  forgotten. 
Nowadays  they  hold  that  geography,  like  charity, 
should  begin  at  home,  so  the  first  thing  is  to  make 
a  geodetic  survey  of  the  back  yard.  By  the  time 
they  work  up  to  the  fact  that  the  earth  is  a  planet, 
the  pupils  have  learned  so  many  other  things  that 
it  makes  very  little  impression  on  their  minds." 

"  Scholasticus,"  said  I,  "  I  was  saying  the  old 
order  changes  lest  one  good  custom  should  cor- 


88     HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

rupt  the  educational  world.  They  were  great 
people  for  rules  in  your  day.  It  was  an  inherit 
ance  from  the  past.  You  remember  the  anecdote 
of  Ezekiel  Cheever,  head  master  of  the  Boston 
Latin  School,  who  taught  Cotton  Mather  Latin. 
A  pupil  writes,  '  My  master  found  fault  with  the 
syntax  of  one  word,  which  was  not  so  used  heed 
lessly,  but  designedly,  and  therefore  I  told  him 
there  was  a  plain  grammar  rule  for  it.  He  angrily 
replied  that  there  was  no  such  rule.  I  took  the 
grammar  and  showed  the  rule  to  him.  Then  he 
said,  "  Thou  art  a  brave  boy.  I  had  forgot  the 
rule." '  That  takes  us  back  to  a  time  when  there 
was  a  superstitious  reverence  for  rules.  We  don't 
reason  so  rigidly  from  rules  now,  we  develop  the 
mind  according  to  a  chronological  rather  than  a 
logical  order.  We  let  the  ideas  come  according 
to  the  order  of  nature." 

At  this,  the  wrath  of  Scholasticus  bubbled  over. 
"  '  The  order  of  nature ' !  The  nature  of  what '? 
A  cabbage  head  grows  according  to  an  order  nat 
ural  to  cabbages.  But  a  rational  intelligence  is  de 
veloped  according  to  the  laws  of  reason.  The  first 
thing  is  to  formulate  the  laws,  and  then  to  obey 
them.  Logic  has  to  do  with  the  laws  of  rational 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES     89 

thought,  just  as  grammar  has  to  do  with  the  laws 
of  correct  speech.  Nowadays,  the  teacher  seems 
to  be  afraid  of  laying  down  the  law.  I  visited  a 
model  school  the  other  day.  It  was  n't  a  school 
at  all,  according  to  the  definition  in  the  old-fash 
ioned  book  I  used  to  read :  '  A  school  is  a  place 
where  children  go  to  study  books.  The  good 
children  when  they  have  learned  their  lessons  go 
out  to  play,  the  idle  remain  and  are  punished/ 
According  to  the  modern  method,  it  is  the  teacher 
who  must  remain  to  be  punished  for  the  idleness 
of  her  pupils.  It 's  her  business  to  make  the  les 
sons  interesting.  If  their  attention  wanders,  she 
is  held  responsible.  The  teacher  must  stay  after 
hours  and  plan  new  strategic  moves.  She  must 
'by  indirections  find  directions  out,'  —  while  the 
pupil  is  resisting  one  form  of  instruction,  she  sud 
denly  teaches  him  something  else.  In  this  way 
the  pupil's  wits  are  kept  on  the  run.  No  mat 
ter  how  they  scatter,  there  is  the  teacher  before 
him." 

"  Why  is  not  that  a  good  way  ?  "  I  said.  "  It 
certainly  brings  results.  The  pupil  gets  on  rap 
idly.  He  learns  a  lesson  before  he  knows  it." 

"  He  never  does  know  it,"   growled  Scholas- 


90     HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

ticus.  "  And  what 's  worse,  he  does  n't  know  that 
he  does  n't  know  it.  By  this  painless  method  he 
has  never  been  compelled  to  charge  his  mind 
with  it  and  to  reason  it  out.  And  besides,  it 's 
death  on  the  teacher.  Ezekiel  Cheever  taught 
that  Boston  Latin  School  till  he  was  over  ninety 
years  old,  and  never  had  a  touch  of  nervous  pros 
tration.  He  did  n't  have  to  lie  awake  planning 
how  to  hold  the  rapt  attention  of  his  pupils.  If 
there  was  any  chance  of  the  grammar  rules  not 
being  learned,  he  let  them  do  the  worrying.  It 
was  good  for  them.  There  was  a  race  of  sturdy 
thinkers  in  those  days.  They  knew  how  to  deal 
with  knotty  problems.  If  they  survived  the  school, 
they  could  not  be  downed  in  the  town  meeting." 
"  Scholasticus,"  I  said,  "  I  don't  like  the  way 
you  talk.  The  trouble  with  you  is  that  you  took 
your  education  too  hard.  I  fancy  that  I  see  every 
lesson  you  ever  learned  sticking  out  of  your  con 
sciousness  like  the  piles  of  stones  in  a  New  Hamp 
shire  pasture.  They  are  monuments  of  industry, 
but  they  lack  a  certain  suavity.  You  are  doing 
what  most  Americans  do,  —  whenever  they  find 
anything  wrong  they  lay  the  blame  on  the  public 
schools.  Just  because  some  of  the  younger  men 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES    91 

at  your  club  argue  somewhat  erratically,  you 
blame  the  whole  modern  system  of  education. 
It 's  a  way  you  clever  people  have,  —  you  are  not 
content  with  one  good  and  sufficient  reason  for 
your  statement  of  fact.  You  must  reinforce  it  by 
another  of  a  more  general  character.  It  makes  me 
feel  as  I  do  when,  a  faucet  needing  a  new  washer, 
I  send  for  a  plumber,  —  and  behold  twain  !  One 
would  be  enough,  if  he  would  attend  strictly  to 
business.  Every  system  has  its  failures.  If  that 
of  the  present  day  seems  to  have  more  than  its 
share,  it  is  because  its  failures  are  still  in  evidence, 
while  those  of  your  generation  are  mostly  forgot 
ten.  Oblivion  is  a  deft  housemaid,  who  tidies  up 
the  chambers  of  the  Past,  by  sweeping  all  the 
dust  into  the  dark  corners.  On  the  other  hand, 
you  drop  into  the  Present  amid  the  disorder  of 
the  spring  cleaning,  when  everything  is  out  on 
the  line.  If  you  could  recall  the  shining  lights  in 
your  Logic  class,  you  might  admit  that  some  of 
them  had  the  form  of  reasoning  without  the  power 
thereof.  It  was  in  your  day,  was  n't  it,  that  the  criti 
cism  was  made  on  the  undergraduate  thesis :  — 

Although  he  wrote  it  all  by  rote, 
He  did  not  write  it  right. 


92    HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

I  could  n't  help  thinking  of  those  lines  when  I  was 
listening  just  now  to  your  reasoning.  The  real 
point,  Scholasticus,  is  this,  which  seems  to  have 
escaped  you.  You  talk  of  the  laws  of  the  mind. 
When  you  were  in  college  it  seemed  a  very  sim 
ple  thing  to  formulate  these  laws.  There  was  no 
Child  Psychology,  giving  way  before  you  knew 
it  to  Adolescence,  where  everything  was  quite  dif 
ferent.  There  was  no  talk  about  subliminal  con 
sciousness,  where  you  could  n't  tell  which  was 
consciousness  and  which  was  something  else.  The 
mind  in  your  day  came  in  one  standard  size." 

"Yes,"  said  Scholasticus,  "when  we  were  in 
the  Academy,  we  had  Watts  on  the  Mind.  Watts 
treated  his  subject  in  a  straightforward  way;  he 
had  nothing  about  nervous  reactions ;  he  gave  us 
plain  Mind.  When  we  got  into  college  we  had 
Locke  on  the  Understanding.  When  it  was  time 
to  take  account  of  conscience,  we  had  Paley's 
'Moral  Science.'  This,  with  the  '  Evidences,'  made 
a  pretty  good  preparation  for  life." 

"  So  it  did,"  I  said,  "  and  you  have  done  credit 
to  your  training.  But  since  that  time  Psycholo 
gists  have  made  a  number  of  discoveries  which 
render  it  necessary  to  revise  the  old  methods." 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES    93 

Seeing  that  he,  for  the  first  time,  was  giving 
me  his  attention,  I  thought  that  it  might  be  pos 
sible  to  win  him  away  from  that  futile  and  acrid 
criticism  of  the  present  course  of  events,  which  is 
the  besetting  sin  of  men  of  his  age,  to  the  more 
fruitful  criticism  by  creation. 

"  Scholasticus,"  I  said,  "  here  is  your  oppor 
tunity.  You  complain  that  Logic  is  going  out. 
The  trouble  is  that  it  has  been  taught  in  an  anti 
quated  way.  The  logicians  followed  the  analogy 
of  mathematics.  They  invented  all  sorts  of  formal 
figures  and  diagrams,  and  were  painfully  abstract. 
When  you  were  learning  to  reason,  you  had  to 
commit  to  memory  a  formula  like  this  :  *  Every 
y  is  x ;  every  z  is  y ;  therefore  every  z  is  x.  E.g., 
let  the  major  term  (which  is  represented  by  x)  be 
"  One  who  possesses  all  virtue,"  the  minor  term 
(z)  "  Every  man  who  possesses  one  virtue,"  and 
the  middle  term  (y)  "  Every  man  who  possesses 
prudence,"  and  you  have  the  celebrated  argument 
of  Aristotle  that  "  the  virtues  are  inseparable." 3 

"  Now  you  can't  make  the  youth  of  this  gen 
eration  submit  to  that  kind  of  argumentation. 
They  are  willing  to  admit  the  virtues  are  insep 
arable,  if  you  say  so,  but  they  are  not  going  to 


94    HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

take  time  to  figure  it  out.  You  can't  arouse  their 
interest  by  demonstrating  that  '  If  A  is  B,  C  is  D, 
C  is  not  D,  therefore  A  is  not  B.'  They  say, 
'What  of  it?'  They  refuse  to  concern  them 
selves  about  the  fate  of  letters  of  the  alphabet. 
Such  methods  prejudice  them  against  Logic. 
They  prefer  not  to  reason  at  all,  rather  than  do  it 
in  such  an  old-fashioned  way.  Besides,  they  have 
peeped  into  the  Psychology  for  Teachers,  and 
they  know  their  rights.  Such  teaching  is  not  good 
pedagogics.  The  youthful  mind  must  be  shielded 
from  abstractions ;  if  it  is  not,  there  's  no  knowing 
what  might  happen.  It  will  not  do  to  go  at  your 
subject  in  such  a  brutal  way.  This  is  the  age  of 
the  concrete  and  the  vital.  Things  are  observed 
in  the  state  of  nature.  The  birds  must  be  in  the 
bush,  and  the  fishes  in  the  water,  and  the  flow 
ers  must  be  caught  in  the  very  act  of  growing. 
That's  what  makes  them  interesting.  If  the 
youthful  mind  is  to  be  induced  to  love  Nature, 
Nature  must  do  her  prettiest  for  the  youthful 
mind.  Otherwise  it  will  be  found  that  the  mental 
vacuum  abhors  Nature. 

"  If  there  is  to  be  a  revival  of  Logic,  it  must 
be  attached  to  something  in  which  people  are 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES    95 

already  interested.  People  are  interested  in  bio 
logical  processes.  They  like  to  see  things  grow, 
and  to  help  in  the  process  as  far  as  they  can  with 
out  disturbing  Nature.  Why  don't  you,  Scho- 
lasticus,  try  your  hand  at  a  text-book  which  shall 
insinuate  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  principles 
of  sound  reasoning,  under  the  guise  of  Botany 
or  Hygiene  or  Physical  Culture,  or  some  of  the 
branches  that  are  more  popular  *?  I  believe  that 
you  could  make  a  syllogism  as  interesting  as  any 
thing  else.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  make  people 
think  that  it  is  something  else." 

At  the  time  Scholasticus  only  sniffed  scornfully 
at  my  suggestion ;  but  not  many  days  had  passed 
before  I  began  to  notice  a  change  in  his  demeanor. 
Instead  of  his  usual  self-sufficiency,  there  came 
into  his  eyes  a  wistful  plea  for  appreciation.  He 
had  the  chastened  air  of  one  who  no  longer  sits 
in  the  chair  of  the  critic,  but  is  awaiting  the  mo 
ment  when  he  shall  endure  criticism. 

From  such  signs  as  these  I  inferred  that  Scho 
lasticus  was  writing  a  book.  There  is  nothing 
that  so  takes  the  starch  out  of  a  man's  intellect 
and  reduces  him  to  a  state  of  abject  dependence 
on  the  judgment  of  his  fellow  beings  as  writing  a 


96    HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

book.  For  the  first  question  about  a  book  is  not, 
"Is  it  good?"  but,  "Will  anybody  read  it?" 
When  this  question  is  asked,  the  most  common 
place  individual  assumes  a  new  importance.  He 
represents  the  Public.  The  Author  wonders  as  to 
what  manner  of  man  he  is.  Will  he  like  the  Book  ? 

I  was  not  therefore  surprised  when  one  day 
Scholasticus,  in  a  shamefaced  way,  handed  me 
the  manuscript  of  a  work  entitled,  "  How  to  Know 
the  Fallacies ;  or  Nature-Study  in  Logic." 

In  these  pages  Scholasticus  shows  a  sincere 
desire  to  adapt  himself  to  a  new  order  of  things. 
He  no  longer  stands  proudly  on  the  quarter-deck 
of  the  good  ship  Logic,  with  a  sense  of  fathomless 
depths  of  rationality  under  the  keel.  Logic  is  a 
poor  old  stranded  wreck.  His  work  is  like  that 
of  the  Swiss  Family  Robinson :  to  carry  off  the 
necessities  of  life  and  the  more  portable  luxuries, 
and  to  use  them  in  setting  up  housekeeping  on 
the  new  island  of  Nature-Study. 

I  cannot  say  that  he  has  been  entirely  success 
ful  in  making  the  art  of  reasoning  a  pleasant  out- 
of-door  recreation.  He  has  not  altogether  over 
come  the  stiffness  which  is  the  result  of  his  early 
education.  In  treating  thought  as  if  it  were  a 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES    97 

vegetable,  he  does  not  always  conceal  the  fact 
that  it  is  not  a  vegetable.  There  are,  therefore, 
occasional  jolts  as  he  suddenly  changes  from  one 
aspect  of  his  subject  to  another. 

I  was,  however,  much  pleased  to  see  that,  in 
stead  of  ambitiously  attempting  to  treat  of  the 
processes  of  valid  reasoning,  he  has  been  content 
to  begin  with  those  forms  of  argumentation  which 
are  more  familiar. 

His  preface  does  what  every  good  preface 
should  do  :  it  presents  the  Author  not  at  his  worst 
nor  at  his  best,  but  in  a  salvable  condition,  so  that 
the  reader  will  say,  "  He  is  not  such  a  bad  fellow, 
after  all,  and  doubtless  when  he  gets  warmed  up 
to  his  work  he  will  do  better."  It  may  be  as 
well  to  quote  the  Preface  in  full. 

"Careless  Reader,  in  the  intervals  between 
those  wholesome  recreations  which  make  up  the 
more  important  portion  of  life,  you  may  have 
sometimes  come  upon  a  thought.  It  may  have 
been  only  a  tiny  thoughtlet.  Slight  as  it  was  in 
itself,  it  was  worthy  of  your  attention,  for  it  was 
a  living  thing.  Pushing  its  way  out  of  the  fertile 
soil  of  your  subconscious  being,  it  had  come 
timidly  into  the  light  of  day.  If  it  seemed  to  you 


9  8    HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

unusual,  it  was  only  because  you  have  not  culti 
vated  the  habit  of  noticing  such  things.  They  are 
really  very  common. 

"  If  you  can  spare  the  time,  let  us  sit  down  to 
gether  and  pluck  up  the  thoughtlet  by  the  roots 
and  examine  its  structure.  You  may  find  some 
pleasure,  and  perhaps  a  little  profit,  in  these  native 
growths  of  your  mind. 

"  When  you  take  up  a  thought  and  pull  it  to 
pieces,  you  will  see  that  it  is  not  so  simple  as  it 
seems.  It  is  in  reality  made  up  of  several  thoughts 
joined  together.  When  you  try  to  separate  them, 
you  find  it  difficult.  The  connective  tissue  which 
binds  them  together  is  called  inference.  When 
several  thoughts  growing  out  of  the  same  soil  are 
connected  by  inference,  they  form  what  is  called 
an  argument.  Arguments,  as  they  are  found  in 
the  state  of  Nature,  are  of  two  kinds ;  those  that 
hang  together,  and  those  that  only  seem  to  hang 
together ;  these  latter  are  called  Fallacies. 

"  In  former  times  they  were  treated  as  mere 
weeds  and  were  mercilessly  uprooted.  In  these 
days  we  have  learned  to  look  upon  them  with  a 
kindlier  eye.  They  have  their  uses,  and  serve  to 
beautify  many  a  spot  that  otherwise  would  remain 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES    99 

barren.  They  are  the  wild  flowers  of  the  intellec 
tual  world.  I  do  not  intend  to  intrude  my  own 
taste  or  to  pass  judgment  on  the  different  varie 
ties  ;  but  only  to  show  my  readers  how  to  know 
the  fallacies  when  they  see  them.  It  may  be  said 
that  mere  nomenclature  is  of  little  value.  So  it 
is  in  itself;  yet  there  is  a  pleasure  in  knowing  the 
names  of  the  common  things  we  meet  every  day. 
The  search  for  fallacies  need  never  take  one  far 
afield.  The  collector  may  find  almost  all  the 
known  varieties  growing  within  his  own  enclo 
sure. 

"  Let  us  then  go  out  in  the  sunshine  into  the 
pleasant  field  of  thought.  There  we  see  the  argu 
ments  —  valid  and  otherwise  —  as  they  are  grow 
ing.  You  will  notice  that  every  argument  has 
three  essential  parts.  First  is  the  root,  called  by 
the  old  logicians  in  their  crabbed  language  the 
Major  Premise.  Growing  quite  naturally  out  of 
this  is  the  stem,  called  the  Minor  Premise ;  and 
crowning  that  is  the  flower,  with  its  seed  vessels 
which  contain  the  potentialities  of  future  argu 
ments,  —  this  is  called  the  Conclusion. 

"  Let  the  reader  observe  this  argument :  '  Every 
horse  is  an  animal ; '  that  is  the  root  thought. 


ioo  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

4  Sheep  are  not  horses  ; '  that  is  the  stem  shooting 
into  the  air.  '  Therefore,  sheep  are  not  animals ; ' 
that  is  the  conclusion,  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 

"  There  is  a  pleasing  impression  of  naturalness 
about  the  way  in  which  one  thought  grows  out  of 
that  which  immediately  preceded  it.  There  is  a 
sudden  thrill  when  we  come  to  the  '  therefore/ 
the  blossoming  time  of  the  argument.  We  feel 
that  we  are  entering  into  one  of  Nature's  secret 
processes.  Unless  our  senses  are  deceiving  us,  we 
are  actually  reasoning. 

"  After  a  while,  when  curiosity  and  the  pride  of 
possession  lead  us  to  look  more  carefully  at  our 
treasure,  we  are  somewhat  surprised.  It  is  not  as 
it  seemed.  A  little  observation  convinces  us  that, 
in  spite  of  our  argumentation,  sheep  are  animals, 
and  always  have  been.  Thus,  quite  by  accident, 
and  through  the  unaided  exercise  of  our  own  fac 
ulties,  we  have  come  upon  one  of  the  most  an 
cient  forms  of  reasoning,  one  that  has  engaged 
the  attention  of  wise  men  since  Aristotle,  —  a  fal 
lacy." 

In  the  opening  chapters,  Scholasticus  gives  a 
description  of  the  more  common  fallacies,  with 
an  account  of  their  habits  of  growth  and  of  the 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  101 

soils  in  which  they  most  flourish.  "  Petitio  Princi- 
pii,  or  begging  the  question.  This  is  a  very  pretty 
little  fallacy  of  vine-like  habit.  It  is  found  grow 
ing  beside  old  walls,  and  wherever  'it  is  POL  1'kely 
to  be  disturbed.  It  is  easily  propagated  from  slips, 
each  slip  being  capable  of  indefinite  multiplica 
tion,  the  terminal  buds  sending  down  new  roots, 
and  the  process  of  growth  going  on  continuously. 
So  tenacious  is  it  that  it  is  practically  impossible 
to  eradicate  the  petitio,  when  once  it  has  fairly 
established  itself.  It  recommends  itself  on  the 
ground  of  economy.  In  most  arguments  the  at 
tempt  is  made  to  prove  one  thing  by  means  of 
another  thing.  This,  of  course,  involves  a  con 
siderable  waste  of  good  material.  In  begging  the 
question,  by  means  of  one  proposition  we  are 
enabled  to  prove  a  proposition  that  is  identical 
with  it.  In  this  way  an  idea  may  be  made  to  go 
a  long  way. 

"  The  most  familiar  variety  of  this  fallacy  is  that 
known  as  the  Argument  in  a  Circle.  To  those 
who  are  fond  of  arguments,  but  who  can  afford 
very  little  mind  space  for  their  cultivation,  this 
is  an  almost  ideal  fallacy.  It  requires  only  the 
slightest  soil,  deriving  its  nutriment  almost  wholly 


102  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

from  the  air,  and  reproducing  itself  without  the 
slightest  variation  in  type. 

"  Its  hardiness  and  exuberant  efflorescence 
make  it  desirable  for  many  purposes.  It  is  useful  as 
a  screen  to  hide  the  more  unsightly  parts  of  one's 
intellectual  grounds.  Often,  too,  there  may  be  an 
argumentative  structure  that  has  fallen  into  decay. 
Its  real  reason  for  existence  is  no  longer  obvious, 
yet  it  may  have  associations  which  make  us  re 
luctant  to  tear  it  down.  In  such  a  case,  nothing 
is  easier  than  to  plant  a  slip  of  the  circular  argu 
ment.  In  a  short  time  the  old  ruin  becomes  a 
bower,  covered  with  an  exuberant  efflorescence 
of  rationality.  This  argument  is  to  be  recom 
mended  for  a  Woman's  Hardy  Garden  of  Fal 
lacies. 

44  It  is  one  which  gives  great  pleasure  to  a  home- 
loving  person  who  finds  satisfaction  in  that  which 
is  his  own.  Often  have  I  seen  a  householder  sit 
ting  under  its  sweet  shade,  well  content.  He  was 
conscious  of  having  an  argument  which  answered 
to  all  his  needs,  and  which  protected  him  alike 
from  the  contradiction  of  sinners  and  from  the 
intrusive  questioning  of  the  more  critical  sort  of 
saints.  He  had  such  satisfaction  as  came  to  Jonah, 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  103 

when  the  booth  he  had  constructed,  with  such 
slight  skill  as  belonged  to  an  itinerant  preacher, 
was  covered  by  the  luxuriant  gourd  vine.  Things 
were  not  going  as  he  had  expected  in  Nineveh, 
and  current  events  were  discrediting  his  prophe 
cies,  but  Jonah  '  rejoiced  with  great  joy  over  the 
gourd/ 

"  I  may  be  pardoned,  in  treating  the  circular 
argument?  for  deviating,  for  a  moment,  from  the 
field  of  botany  into  the  neighboring  field  of  zool 
ogy.  For  after  all,  the  same  principles  hold  good 
there  also,  and  as  we  are  forming  the  habit  of 
looking  at  thought  as  a  kind  of  plant,  we  may  also 
consider  it  as  a  kind  of  animal,  —  let  us  say,  if 
you  please,  a  goldfish.  You  have  often  paused 
to  watch  the  wonders  of  marine  life  as  epitomized 
in  a  glass  globe  upon  your  centre-table.  Those 
who  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships  have  doubtless 
seen  more  of  the  surface  of  waters,  but  they  have 
not  the  same  facilities  for  looking  into  its  interior 
life  that  you  have  in  your  aquarium.  A  school 
of  goldfishes  represent  for  you  the  finny  monsters 
of  the  deep.  You  see  the  whole  world  they  move 
in.  The  encircling  glass  is  the  firmament  in  the 
midst  of  the  waters.  The  goldfishes  go  round 


104  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

and  round,  and  have  a  very  good  time,  and  have 
many  adventures,  but  they  never  get  out  of  their 
crystal  firmament.  You  may  leave  them  for  half 
a  day,  but  when  you  come  back  you  know  just 
where  to  find  them.  An  aquarium  is  a  much  safer 
place  for  goldfishes  to  swim  in  than  the  ocean; 
to  be  sure,  they  do  not  get  on  far,  but  on  the 
other  hand  they  do  not  get  lost,  and  there  are  no 
whales  or  even  herrings,  to  make  them  afraid. 
There  is  the  same  advantage  in  doing  our  reason 
ing  in  a  circle.  We  can  keep  up  an  argument 
much  longer  when  we  are  operating  in  friendly 
waters  and  are  always  near  our  base  of  supplies. 
The  trouble  with  thinking  straight  is,  that  it  is 
likely  to  take  us  too  far  from  home.  The  first  we 
know  we  are  facing  a  new  issue.  From  this  peril 
we  are  saved  by  the  habit  of  going  round  and 
round.  He  who  argues  and  runs  away  from  the 
real  difficulty  lives  to  argue  another  day,  and 
the  best  of  it  is  the  argument  will  be  just  the 
same. 

"  Argumentum  ad  Hominem.  This  is  a  large  fam 
ily,  containing  many  interesting  varieties.  The 
ad  bominem  is  of  parasitic  growth,  a  sort  of  logi 
cal  mistletoe.  It  grows  not  out  of  the  nature  of 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  105 

things,  but  of  the  nature  of  the  particular  mind  to 
which  it  is  addressed.  In  the  cultivation  of  this 
fallacy  it  is  only  necessary  to  remember  that  each 
mind  has  its  weak  point.  Find  out  what  this  weak 
point  is,  and  drop  into  it  the  seed  of  the  appropri 
ate  fallacy,  and  the  result  will  exceed  your  fond 
est  anticipation. 

"Again  with  the  reader's  kind  permission,  I  will 
stray  from  the  field  of  botany ;  this  time  into  that 
of  personal  experience.  At  the  risk  of  falling  into 
obsolete  and  discredited  methods  of  instruction,  I 
will  ask  you  for  the  moment  to  look  in  and  not 
out. 

"  Dear  Reader,  often,  when  reasoning  with 
yourself,  especially  about  your  own  conduct,  you 
have  found  comfort  in  a  syllogism  like  this :  — 

I  like  to  do  right. 

I  do  what  I  like. 

Therefore,  I  do  what  is  right. 
The  conclusion  is  so  satisfactory  that  you  have 
no  heart  to  look  too  narrowly  at  the  process  by 
which  it  is  attained.  When  you  do  what  you 
like,  it  is  pleasant  to  think  that  righteousness  is  a 
by-product  of  your  activity.  Moreover,  there  is  a 
native  generosity  about  you  which  makes  you 


106  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

willing  to  share  with  others  the  more  lasting  bene 
fits  which  may  ensue.  You  are  ready  to  believe 
that  what  is  profitable  to  you  must  also  be  profit 
able  to  them  in  the  long  run,  —  if  not  in  a  mate 
rial,  then  in  a  spiritual  way.  All  the  advantage 
that  comes  to  you  is  merely  temporary  and  per 
sonal.  When  you  have  reaped  this  scanty  har 
vest,  you  do  not  begrudge  to  humanity  in  general 
its  plentiful  gleanings.  In  your  altruistic  mood 
you  do  not  consider  too  carefully  the  particular 
blessing  which  your  action  has  bestowed  on  the 
world ;  you  are  content  with  the  thought  that  it 
is  a  good  diffused. 

"  When  out  of  what  is  in  the  beginning  only 
a  personal  gratification  there  grows  a  cosmic  law, 
we  have  the  Argumentum  ad  Hominem.  There  are 
few  greater  pleasures  in  life  than  that  of  having  all 
our  preferences  justified  by  our  reason.  There  are 
some  persons  who  are  so  susceptible  to  arguments 
of  this  kind  that  they  never  suffer  from  the  sensa 
tion  of  having  done  something  wrong,  —  a  sensa 
tion  which  I  can  assure  you  is  quite  disagreeable. 
They  might  suspect  they  had  done  wrong,  were  it 
not  that  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  reason  about  it 
they  perceive  that  all  that  happened  was  highly  to 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  107 

their  credit.  The  more  they  think  about  it,  the 
more  pleased  they  are  with  themselves.  They  per 
ceive  that  their  action  was  much  more  disinter 
ested  than,  at  the  time,  they  intended.  They  are 
like  a  person  who  tumbles  into  the  Dead  Sea.  He 
can't  go  under  even  if  he  tries.  It  is,  of  course,  a 
matter  of  specific  gravity.  When  a  conscience  is 
<of  less  specific  gravity  than  the  moral  element  into 
which  it  is  cast,  it  cannot  remain  submerged.  The 
i  fortunate  owner  of  such  a  conscience  watches  it 
with  satisfaction  when  it  serenely  bobs  to  the  sur 
face;  he  advertises  its  superlative  excellence, — 
'  Perfectly  Pure  !  It  floats.' 

"  The  great  use  of  the  ad  hominem  argument  is 
i  like  that  of  certain  leguminous  plants  which  en 
rich  the  soil  by  giving  to  it  elements  in  which  it 
had  been  previously  lacking.  After  a  crop  of  ad 
hominem  arguments  has  grown  and  been  turned 
under,  we  may  expect  a  rich  harvest  of  more  com 
mercially  valuable  fallacies  in  the  next  season. 
To  thus  enrich  the  soil  is  an  evidence  of  the  skill 
of  the  culturist. 

"  Suppose,  for  example,  you  were  to  attempt  to 
implant  this  proposition  in  the  unprepared  mind 
of  an  acquaintance,  fc  All  geese  are  swans.'  The 


io8  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

proposition  is  not  well  received.  All  your  friend's 
ornithological  prejudices  are  against  it.  There  is 
no  foodstuff  to  support  your  theory. 

"  But  suppose  you  prepare  the  soil  by  a  crop  of 
the  ad  hominem  argument.  You  say  to  your  friend, 
after  looking  admiringly  at  his  possessions,  '  It 
seems  to  me  that  all  your  geese  are  swans/  He 
answers  cordially,  '  That 's  just  what  I  was  think 
ing  myself.'  Now  you  have  nicely  prepared  the 
ground  for  further  operations. 

"  While  controversial  theologians  have  always 
had  a  fondness  for  arguments  in  a  circle,  the  ad 
hominem  arguments  have  been  largely  cultivated 
by  politicians.  More  than  a  generation  ago  Jer 
emy  Bentham  published  a  work  called  4  Political 
Fallacies/  He  described  those  that  are  indigenous 
to  the  British  Isles.  Almost  all  on  his  list  were 
of  the  ad  hominem  variety.  He  described  particu 
larly  those  which  could  be  grown  to  advantage  in 
the  Houses  of  Parliament.  Since  Bentham's  day, 
much  has  been  done  in  America  in  the  way  of 
propagating  new  varieties.  Many  of  these,  though 
widely  advertised,  have  not  yet  been  scientifically 
described.  I  have  thought  that  if  my  present  book 
is  well  received,  I  might  publish  another  covering 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  109 

this  ground.  It  will  probably  be  entitled,  '  Rea 
soning  for  Profit;  or  Success  with  Small  Falla 
cies.' 

"  The  great  essential  in  arguments  of  this  kind 
is  to  have  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  soil.  Given 
the  right  soil,  and  the  most  feeble  argument 
will  flourish.  Take,  for  example,  the  arguments 
for  the  divine  right  of  kings  to  rule,  once  much 
esteemed  by  court  preachers.  Of  course  the  first 
necessity  was  to  catch  your  kings.  The  argu 
ments  in  themselves  were  singularly  feeble,  but 
they  flourished  mightily  in  the  hotbeds  of  royalty. 
The  trouble  was  that  they  did  not  bear  trans 
planting. 

"  Half  a  century  ago  there  were  a  dozen  thrifty 
arguments  for  human  slavery.  They  are,  abstractly 
speaking,  as  good  now  as  they  ever  were,  but  they 
have  altogether  passed  out  of  cultivation. 

"  In  landscape  gardening  groups  of  the  ad  homi- 
nem  arguments  skillfully  arranged  are  always 
charming.  Much  discrimination  is  needed  for  the 
adornment  of  any  particular  spot.  Suppose  you 
were  called  upon  to  furnish  fallacies  for  an  Amal 
gamated  Society  of  Esoteric  Astrologers.  You 
might  safely,  in  such  fertile  soil  and  tropical  cli- 


no  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

mate,  plant  the  most  luxuriant  exotics.  Such  airy 
growths,  however,  would  be  obviously  inappropri 
ate  for  a  commercial  club  composed  of  solid  busi 
ness  men.  You  would  for  them  choose  rather  a 
sturdy  perennial,  for  example,  the  argumentum  ad 
Pennsylvaniam,  or  tariff-bearing  argument. 

"  It  grows  thus  :  — 

The  tariff  is  that  which  conduces  to  our  prosperity. 
A  tax  does  not  conduce  to  our  prosperity. 
Therefore,  a  tariff  is  not  a  tax. 

"  Persons  who  have  confined  their  logical  exer 
cises  to  the  task  of  convincing  impartial  minds 
have  no  idea  of  the  exhilaration  which  comes  when 
one  has  only  to  convince  a  person  of  the  wisdom 
of  a  course  of  action  he  has  already  taken.  There 
is  really  no  comparison  between  the  two.  There 
is  all  the  difference  that  there  is  between  climbing 
an  icy  hill  and  sliding  down  the  same  hill  on  a 
toboggan.  There  is  no  intellectual  sport  equal  to 
that  of  tobogganing  from  a  lofty  moral  premise 
to  a  congenial  practical  conclusion.  We  go  so 
fast  that  we  hardly  know  how  we  got  to  the  bot 
tom,  but  there  we  are,  safe  and  sound.  We  have 
only  to  choose  our  company  and  hold  on ;  grav 
itation  does  the  rest.  It  is  astonishing  what  con- 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  1 1 1 

elusions  we  can  come  to  when  we  do  our  reason 
ing  in  this  pleasantly  gregarious  fashion. 

"  Ignoratio  Elenchi,  or  the  fallacy  of  irrelevant 
conclusion.  This  is  not  a  natural  species,  but  the 
result  of  artifice.  It  is  a  familiar  kind  of  argument. 
It  begins  well,  and  it  ends  well,  but  you  have  a 
feeling  that  something  has  happened  to  it  in  the 
middle.  You  have  noticed  in  the  orchard  an  apple 
tree  that  starts  out  to  be  a  Pippin,  but  when  the 
time  comes  for  it  to  bear  fruit  it  has  apparently 
changed  its  mind,  and  has  concluded  to  be  a 
Rhode  Island  Greening.  Of  course  you  are  aware 
that  it  has  not  really  changed  its  mind,  for  the 
laws  of  Nature  are  quite  invariable.  The  whim 
sicality  of  its  conduct  is  to  be  laid  not  upon  Na 
ture,  but  upon  Art.  The  gardener  has  skillfully 
grafted  one  stock  upon  another.  The  same  thing 
can  be  done  with  an  argument.  You  have  often 
observed  the  way  in  which  a  person  will  start  out 
to  prove  one  proposition  and  after  a  little  while 
end  up  with  the  triumphant  demonstration  of 
something  that  is  quite  different.  He  shows  such 
an  ability  at  ratiocination  that  you  cannot  help 
admiring  his  reasoning  powers,  though  it  is  hard 
to  follow  him.  Your  bewilderment  comes  from 


ii2  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

the  fact  that  you  had  expected  the  original  seed 
ling  to  bring  forth  after  its  kind,  and  had  not 
noticed  the  point  where  the  scion  of  a  new  pro 
position  had  been  grafted  on. 

"  Many  persons  are  not  troubled  at  all  when  the 
conclusions  are  irrelevant.  They  rather  like  them 
that  way.  If  an  argument  will  not  prove  one 
thing,  then  let  it  prove  another.  It  is  all  in  the 
day's  work.  To  persons  with  this  tolerant  taste 
the  variety  afforded  by  the  use  of  the  ignoratio 
elenchi  is  very  pleasing." 

A  chapter  is  given  to  the  Cross-fertilization  of 
Fallacies.  The  author  shows  how  two  half-truths 
brought  together  from  two  widely  separated  fields 
of  thought  will  produce  a  new  and  magnificently 
variegated  form  of  opinion.  The  hybrid  will  sur 
pass  specimens  of  either  of  the  parent  stocks  both 
in  size  and  showiness.  Thus  a  half-truth  of  pop 
ular  religion  cross-fertilized  by  a  half-truth  of  pop 
ular  science  will  produce  a  hybrid  which  aston 
ishes  both  the  religious  and  the  scientific  world.  If 
we  were  following  the  analogy  of  mathematics 
we  might  assume  that  two  half-truths  would 
make  a  whole  truth.  But  when  we  are  dealing 
with  the  marvelous  reproductive  powers  of  na- 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  113 

ture  we  find  that  they  make  much  more  than 
that. 

Scholasticus  gives  a  page  or  two  to  the  Dwarf 
ing  of  Arguments.  "  The  complaint  is  sometimes 
heard  that  an  argument  which  is  otherwise  satis 
factory  proves  too  much.  This  may  seem  a  good 
fault  to  those  whose  chief  difficulty  is  in  making 
their  arguments  prove  anything  at  all.  But  I  as 
sure  you  that  it  is  really  very  troublesome  to  find 
that  you  have  proved  more  than  you  intended. 
You  may  have  no  facilities  for  dealing  with  the 
surplus  conclusions,  and  you  may  find  all  your 
plans  disarranged.  For  this  reason  many  persons, 
instead  of  cultivating  arguments  of  the  standard 
sizes  which  take  a  good  deal  of  room,  prefer  the 
dwarf  varieties.  These  are  very  convenient  where 
one  does  not  wish  one  principle  to  crowd  out  an 
other  that  may  be  opposed  to  it.  Persons  inclined 
to  moderation  prefer  to  cultivate  a  number  of  good 
ideas  without  crowding.  The  dwarf  varieties  are 
pleasing  to  the  cultivated  taste,  as  they  are  gen 
erally  exceedingly  symmetrical,  while  full-grown 
ideas,  especially  in  exposed  places,  are  apt  to  im 
press  one  as  being  scraggly. 

"  Dean  Swift,  who  had  no  taste  for  miniature 


ii4  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

excellencies,  spoke  scornfully  of  those  who  plant 
oaks  in  flower-pots.  I  have,  however,  frequently 
seen  very  pleasing  oaks  grown  in  this  way,  and 
they  were  not  in  very  big  flower-pots,  either. 

"  In  moral  reasoning,  it  is  especially  difficult  to 
keep  our  conclusions  moderate  enough  for  our 
convenience.  An  ordinary  argument  always  tends 
to  prove  too  much.  This  is  disconcerting  to  those 
who  are  endeavoring  to  live  up  to  their  favorite 
text,  '  Be  not  overmuch  righteous.'  The  danger 
of  overmuchness  is  obviated  by  cultivating  the 
fashionable  dwarf  varieties  of  righteousness. 

"  Various  methods  of  dwarfing  are  practiced 
with  success.  Training  will  do  much ;  you  have 
seen  trees  dwarfed  by  tying  them  to  a  trellis  or 
against  a  wall  or  to  stakes,  and  preventing  their 
growth  beyond  the  prescribed  limits.  Incessant 
pruning  is  necessary,  and  each  new  growth  must 
be  vigorously  headed  back.  By  using  the  same 
means  we  may  cultivate  a  number  of  fine  ideas, 
and  at  the  same  time  keep  them  fairly  small." 

The  least  satisfactory  chapter  is  that  on  Pests. 
"  It  is  easy  enough,"  says  Scholasticus,  "to  describe 
a  pest,  but  it  is  another  matter  to  get  rid  of 
it.  The  most  painstaking  fallacy  culturist  must 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  115 

expect  to  awake  some  morning  and  behold  his 
choicest  arguments  laid  low  by  some  new  kind 
of  critic.  There  seems  to  be  no  limit  to  the  pes 
tiferous  activity  of  these  creatures.  They  are  of 
two  kinds :  those  that  bite,  cutting  off  the  roots 
of  the  argument,  and  those  that  suck  out  the 
juices.  These  latter  destroy  the  vital  tissue  of 
inference  on  which  everything  depends.  I  never 
met  any  one  who  cultivated  arguments  on  a  large 
scale  who  did  not  have  his  tale  of  woe. 

"  I  had  at  one  time  a  theological  friend  who 
had  great  reputation  as  a  dogmatist.  He  had  for 
many  years  a  garden  of  fallacies  which  was  one  of 
the  show  places.  It  was  in  a  sheltered  situation, 
so  that  many  fine  old  dogmas  flourished  which 
we  do  not  often,  in  these  days,  see  growing  out 
of  doors.  Everything  went  well  until  the  locality 
became  infested  with  destructive  criticism.  He 
tried  all  the  usual  remedies  without  success.  At 
last  he  became  utterly  discouraged,  and  cut  out 
all  the  dead  wood,  and  uprooted  all  the  dogmas 
that  were  attacked  by  the  pest.  Since  then  he 
has  given  up  his  more  ambitious  plans,  and  he 
has  only  a  simple  little  place  where  he  cultivates 
those  fruits  of  the  spirit  which  are  not  affected  by 


n6  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

destructive  criticism.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that 
he  is  making  a  very  pleasant  place  of  it. 

"  For  the  encouragement  of  those  who  are  not 
ready  to  take  such  heroic  methods,  it  may  be  said 
that  eternal  vigilance,  though  not  a  panacea,  will  do 
much.  Some  of  the  most  dreaded  species  of  critics 
are  not  so  dangerous  as  they  seem.  Many  persons 
fear  the  Criticus  Academicus.  I  have,  however,  seen 
fallacies  which  survived  the  attacks  of  this  species 
and  fell  easy  victims  to  the  more  troublesome 
Criticus  Vulgaris^  or  Common  Gumption. 

"The  worst  pest  is  what  is  known  as  the  Reduc- 
tio  ad  Absurdum.  This  is  a  kind  of  scale  which 
grows  upon  a  promising  argument  and  eats  out 
its  life.  It  is  so  innocent  in  its  appearance  that 
at  first  one  does  not  suspect  its  deadly  character. 
In  fact,  it  is  sometimes  taken  as  an  agreeable 
ornament.  After  a  little  while  the  argument  is 
covered  over  with  a  sort  of  dry  humor.  There 
is  then  no  remedy." 

In  the  chapter  on  the  use  of  artificial  fertilizers, 
Scholasticus  deals  particularly  with  statistics.  He 
refers  incidentally  to  their  use  in  the  cultiva 
tion  of  valid  arguments.  Their  importance  here 
is  universally  acknowledged.  "  It  should  be  re- 


HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES  117 

membered,"  he  says,  "  that  in  this  case  success 
depends  upon  the  extreme  care  with  which  they 
are  used.  An  unusual  amount  of  discrimination 
is  demanded  in  their  application.  For  this  reason, 
if  solid  conclusions,  that  head  well,  are  expected, 
only  experts  of  good  character  can  be  trusted  to 
do  the  work. 

"  There  is  no  such  difficulty  in  the  use  of  statis 
tics,  if  the  grower  is  content  with  arguments  of  the 
fallacious  order.  Statistics  are  recommended  for  a 
mulch.  By  covering  a  bed  of  fallacies  with  a  heavy 
mulch  of  miscellaneous  statistical  matter  it  is  pro 
tected  from  the  early  frosts  and  the  later  drought. 
The  ground  of  the  argument  is  kept  thus  in  a  good 
condition.  No  particular  care  is  here  needed  in 
the  application  of  statistics;  any  man  who  can 
handle  a  pitchfork  can  do  all  that  is  required.  I 
have  seen  astonishing  results  obtained  in  this  way. 
No  one  need  be  deterred  by  the  consideration  of 
expense.  In  these  days  statistics  are  so  cheap  that 
they  are  within  the  reach  of  all.  If  you  do  not 
care  to  use  the  material  freely  distributed  by  the 
government,  you  can  easily  collect  a  sufficient 
amount  for  yourself. 

"  The  best  way  is  to  prepare  circulars  containing 


ii8  HOW  TO  KNOW  THE  FALLACIES 

half  a  dozen  irrelevant  questions,  which  you  send 
to  several  thousand  persons,  —  the  more  the  bet 
ter.  If  you  enclose  stamps,  those  who  are  good- 
natured  and  conscientious  will  send  you  such  odd 
bits  of  opinion  as  they  have  no  other  use  for,  and 
are  willing  to  contribute  to  the  cause  of  science. 
When  the  contributions  are  received,  assort  them, 
putting  those  that  strike  you  as  more  or  less  alike 
in  long,  straight  rows.  Another  way,  which  is 
more  fancy,  is  that  of  arranging  them  in  curves. 
This  is  called  '  tabulating  the  results.'  When  the 
results  have  been  thoroughly  tabulated,  use  in 
the  manner  I  have  described  for  the  protection 
of  your  favorite  arguments." 

In  this  way  the  book  ran  on  for  some  three 
hundred  pages.  After  I  had  read  it,  I  congratu 
lated  Scholasticus  on  his  effort.  "You  have  al 
most  succeeded,"  I  said,  "  in  making  Logic  inter 
esting  ;  that  is,  if  it  is  Logic.  Now  that  you  have 
made  such  a  good  beginning,  I  wish  you  might 
go  further.  You  have  taught  us,  by  a  natural 
method,  how  to  reason  fallaciously.  I  wish  you 
would  now  teach  us  how  to  reason  correctly." 

"  I  wish  I  could,"  said  Scholasticus. 


THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  THE  PEACE 
MAKERS 


TO  one  who  aspires  to  "  sit  and  shake  in  Rabe 
lais'  easy-chair,"  the  greeting  "Peace  on 
Earth  "  is  a  godsend.  Was  ever  such  a  provoca 
tive  to  satire  ?  Did  ever  human  nature  appear  in 
a  disguise  more  ridiculously  transparent  than  when 
assuming  the  part  of  Peacemaker  in  the  midwin 
ter  pantomimes,  and  impudently  laying  claim  to 
the  very  choicest  beatitude  ?  The  bold  masquer- 
ader  has  not  even  the  grace  to  hide  his  big  stick, 
but  waves  it  as  a  wand.  We  are  asked  to  believe 
that  the  vigorous  flourishes  of  this  same  big  stick 
prepare  for  the  age  of  peace  "  by  prophets  long 
foretold." 

"Have  you  ever  been  to  a  Peace  Conven 
tion4?"  asks  the  amateur  cynic.  "It  is  good  fun 
if  you  are  fortunate  enough  to  be  able  to  watch 
the  proceedings  from  the  seat  of  the  scornful. 
First  come  the  advocates  of  Peace  pure  and  sim- 


120         THE  DIFFICULTIES   OF 

pie,  enthusiasts  for  non-resistance.  As  you  listen 
to  the  reports  of  the  delegates  you  feel  that  the 
time  has  already  come  when  '  the  lion  shall  eat 
straw  like  the  ox.'  Your  sympathies  go  out  to 
the  poor  beast  in  his  sudden  change  of  diet,  — 
for  we  of  the  Carnivora  have  no  great  appetite 
for  straw.  After  a  time  the  lions  are  led  out  to 
speak  for  themselves.  Representatives  of  the  dif 
ferent  nations  give  greetings.  It  appears  from 
their  remarks  that  the  cause  is  one  that  has  al 
ways  been  nearest  to  their  valiant  hearts.  No 
need  to  take  measures  to  convert  them,  —  they 
have  always  been  on  the  right  side.  What  wrere 
teeth  and  claws  invented  for,  if  not  to  enforce 
peace  on  earth1? 

"Each  nation  points  with  pride  to  its  achieve 
ments.  Has  not  Great  Britain  made  peace  in 
South  Africa,  and  the  United  States  of  America 
established  it  in  the  Philippines;  and  was  not 
Russia  a  while  ago  endeavoring  to  establish  it  in 
Manchuria?  Even  the  little  powers  are  at  work 
for  the  same  end.  Is  not  disinterested  Belgium 
making  peace  on  the  banks  of  the  Congo,  with 
rubber  and  ivory  as  a  by-product?  Has  not 
Holland  for  these  many  years  been  industriously 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  121 

weeding  out  the  malcontents  in  Java?  The 
Christian  message  of  good  will  has  now  reached 
the  most  remote  recesses  of  the  earth.  Even  the 
monks  in  Thibet  have  heard  the  good  news. 
They  must  pay  a  good  round  sum  for  it,  to  be 
sure ;  but  what  else  could  they  expect  when  the 
message  must  be  carried  to  them  away  up  on 
the  roof  of  the  world,  quite  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  free  delivery  *?  It 's  their  own  fault  that  they 
never  got  into  full  connection  with  Christendom 
before.  These  unsocial  creatures  have  for  genera 
tions  been  enjoying  a  selfish  peacefulness  of  their 
own.  They  have  been  like  a  householder  who 
has  a  telephone,  but  will  not  allow  his  number 
to  go  on  the  book.  He  likes  to  bother  other  peo 
ple,  but  will  not  allow  them  to  bother  him.  It 
has  long  been  known  that  the  Mahatmas  in  Llassa 
were  in  the  habit  of  projecting  thought  vibrations 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  muddling  the  brains 
of  the  initiated ;  but  the  general  public  could  not 
reciprocate.  The  British  expedition  has  changed 
all  that.  Now  when  Christendom  rings  them  up 
they  've  got  to  answer." 

That  word  "  Christendom  "  has  a  singular  effect 
upon  the  cynic.   It  draws  out  all  his  acrid  humor ; 


122         THE  DIFFICULTIES   OF 

for  it  seems  to  him  the  quintessence  of  hypo 
crisy. 

"  Christian  nations !  Christian  civilization  !  A 
fine  partnership  this,  between  the  brutal  and  the 
spiritual !  In  the  pre-Christian  era  war  was  a  very 
simple  thing.  Read  the  record  of  an  Israelitish 
expedition  in  the  Book  of  Chronicles.  '  And  they 
went  to  the  entrance  of  Gedor,  even  unto  the 
east  side  of  the  valley,  to  seek  pasture  for  their 
flocks.  And  they  found  fat  pasture  and  good, 
and  the  land  was  wide  and  quiet  and  peaceable ; 
for  they  of  Ham  had  dwelt  there  of  old.  And 
these  written  by  name  came  in  the  days  of  Heze- 
kiah,  king  of  Judah,  and  smote  their  tents  and 
the  habitations  that  were  found  there,  and  de 
stroyed  them  utterly  unto  this  day,  and  dwelt  in 
their  rooms ;  because  there  was  pasture  there  for 
their  flocks/ 

"  What  an  unsophisticated  account  of  an  ordi 
nary  transaction !  Even  the  sons  of  Ham  could 
understand  the  motive.  There  was  no  profession 
of  benevolent  intent,  not  even  an  eloquent  refer 
ence  to  manifest  destiny;  the  fat  pastures  were 
a  sufficient  reason.  In  these  days  the  unwilling 
beneficiaries  of  civilization  have  a  harder  time 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  123 

of  it.  No  sooner  are  they  dispossessed  of  their 
lands  than  they  are  called  together  to  rejoice  over 
the  good  work  that  has  been  done  for  them. 
This  is  A.  D.  and  not  B.  c.  The  new  era  began 
with  an  angel  chorus ;  let  us  all  join  in  the  re 
frain.  First  of  all,  decorum  requires  that  the  bare 
facts  be  decently  arrayed  in  spiritual  garments. 
With  the  skill  that  is  the  result  of  long  practice 
the  ugliest  fact  is  fitted.  It  is  a  triumph  of  dress 
making.  The  materials  may  be  a  trifle  thread 
bare,  but  with  a  little  fullness  here  and  a  breadth 
taken  out  there,  each  garment  is  made  as  good  as 
new.  Not  a  blood-stain  shows." 

This  is  a  free  country,  and  the  cynic  must  be 
allowed  his  fling.  But  if  he  has  license  to  speak 
his  mind  in  regard  to  the  simple-hearted  people 
who  believe  in  Peace,  we  must  be  privileged  to 
say  what  we  think  of  him.  The  truth  is  that  we 
think  him  to  be  a  rather  shallow-pated  fellow 
who  has  been  educated  above  his  deserts.  For 
all  his  knowing  ways  he  has  had  but  little*  know 
ledge  of  the  world.  He  has  seen  the  things  which 
are  obvious,  the  things  that  are  shown  to  every 
outsider.  He  prides  himself  on  his  familiarity 


124         THE   DIFFICULTIES   OF 

with  accomplished  facts,  not  realizing  that  these 
belong  to  the  world  that  is  passing  away.  The 
interesting  things  to  see  are  those  which  belong 
to  the  world  that  is  in  process  of  becoming. 
These  are  not  visible  from  the  seat  of  the  scornful. 

The  sweeping  accusation  of  hypocrisy  against 
men  or  nations  whenever  an  incongruity  is  per 
ceived  between  a  professed  purpose  and  an  actual 
achievement  is  an  indication  of  too  great  sim 
plicity  of  mind.  It  is  the  simplicity  that  is  char 
acteristic  of  one  without  experience  in  the  work 
of  creation. 

The  cynic,  perceiving  the  shortcomings  of 
those  who  "  profess  and  call  themselves  Chris 
tians,"  greets  their  professions  with  a  bitter  laugh. 
He  cannot  tolerate  their  pretensions,  and  he  urges 
them  to  return  to  a  frank  profession  of  the  pagan 
ism  which  their  deeds  proclaim.  Now  it  is  emi 
nently  desirable  that  all  who  profess  and  call 
themselves  Christians  should  be  Christians,  —  but 
that  takes  time.  The  profession  is  the  first  step ; 
that  puts  a  whip  into  the  hand  of  conscience. 
Not  only  do  a  man's  friends,  but  particularly  his 
enemies,  insist  that  he  shall  live  up  to  his  name. 
It  is  a  wholesome  discipline.  In  a  new  country 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  125 

two  or  three  houses  set  down  in  a  howling  wilder 
ness  are  denominated  a  city.  It  is  a  mere  name 
at  first,  but  if  all  goes  well  other  metropolitan 
features  are  added  in  due  time.  I  remember  a 
most  interesting  visit  which  I  once  made  to  a  uni 
versity  in  a  new  commonwealth.  The  university 
consisted  of  a  board  of  regents,  an  unfenced  bit 
of  prairie  for  a  "  campus,"  a  president  (who  was 
also  professor  of  the  Arts  and  Sciences),  a  janitor, 
and  two  unfinished  buildings.  A  number  of  the 
village  children  took  courses  which,  if  persisted 
in  for  a  number  of  years,  might  lead  to  what  is 
usually  termed  the  Higher  Education.  One  stu 
dent  from  out  of  town  dwelt  in  solitary  state  in 
the  dormitory.  The  president  met  me  with  great 
cordiality,  and  after  showing  me  "  the  plant "  in 
troduced  me  to  the  student.  It  was  evident  that 
they  were  on  terms  of  great  intimacy,  and  that 
discipline  in  the  university  was  an  easy  matter, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  student  body  was 
homogeneous. 

Now  it  would  be  easy  for  one  under  such  cir 
cumstances  to  laugh  at  what  seemed  mere  pre 
tentiousness.  "  It  was  nothing  more  than  a  small 
school ;  why  not  call  it  that  and  be  done  with 


126         THE   DIFFICULTIES   OF 

it?"  The  reason  for  not  doing  so  was  that  it 
aimed  at  being  a  university.  Its  name  was  a 
declaration  of  purpose.  "Despise  not  the  day  of 
small  things."  The  small  things  may  be  very 
real  things ;  and  then  they  have  a  trick  of  grow 
ing  big  before  you  know  it. 

In  the  world  of  creative  activity  the  thought 
precedes  the  deed,  the  profession  comes  before 
the  achievement.  The  child  makes  believe  that 
he  is  a  man,  and  his  play  is  prophetic.  Let  us 
grant  that  multitudes  who  profess  and  call  them 
selves  Christians  are  only  playing  at  Christianity; 
they  have  not  yet  begun  to  take  the  beatitudes 
seriously.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  play  at,  and  the 
play  is  all  the  time  deepening  into  earnest  work. 

When  it  becomes  earnest,  it  is  still  far  from 
perfect;  but  imperfection  of  workmanship  is  no 
evidence  of  insincerity.  He  would  be  a  poor 
critic  who  at  the  spring  exhibition  should  accuse 
the  artist  of  attempt  to  deceive  because  of  his 
failure  to  achieve  his  professed  purpose. 

"  Do  you  call  that  a  picture  of  the  Madonna  ? 
False-hearted  hypocrite  !  Are  you  wicked  enough 
to  attempt  to  poison  our  minds  and  prejudice  us 
against  one  who  has  been  an  object  of  worship  ? 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  127 

You  are  foisting  upon  us  an  image  of  absolute 
imbecility." 

And  yet  the  poor  artist  is  no  hypocrite,  —  he 
is  only  a  poor  artist,  that  is  all.  He  has  striven 
to  express  what  he  has  actually  felt,  and  he  has 
had  bad  luck.  He  has  been  thrilled  by  an  image 
of  perfect  womanhood,  and  he  sought  to  repro 
duce  it  for  the  joy  of  others.  He  wrought  with 
sad  sincerity,  and  this  is  what  came  of  it ! 

In  the  work  of  creating  a  condition  of  peace 
and  good  will  among  men  the  Christian  nations 
have  not  gone  very  far.  But  why  twit  on  facts  ? 
Let  us  be  reasonable.  Why  should  we  take  it  as 
a  grievance  that  our  birth  has  not  been  delayed 
till  the  Millennium,  but  that  we  have  been  placed 
among  those  who  are  responsible  for  bringing  it 
in?  There  is  a  satisfaction  in  being  allowed  a 
part  in  the  preliminary  work.  And  what  if  many 
well-meant  endeavors  have  come  to  nought  ?  Let 
us  not  spend  our  time  crying  over  the  spilt  milk 
of  human  kindness.  It  is  natural  that  the  first 
attempts  at  peacemaking  should  be  awkward. 
It  takes  time  to  get  the  knack  of  it.  It  is  foolish 
to  reserve  all  our  praise  for  perfection.  That 
gives  an  unpleasant  impression,  such  as  that 


128         THE   DIFFICULTIES   OF 

which  we  receive  from  a  person  who,  when  there 
is  a  call  for  small  change,  produces  a  bank  bill 
of  a  large  denomination,  which  he  knows  no  one 
can  break  for  him. 

"  Peace  on  earth  "  is  not  a  statement  of  accom 
plished  fact,  but  a  prophecy.  Now  it  is  nothing 
against  a  prophecy  that  it  has  not  yet  been  ful 
filled.  The  farther  off  it  is,  the  more  credit  to  the 
eyes  that  see  and  to  the  stout  hearts  that  patiently 
wait  and  work  for  it.  The  practical  question  is 
not  "  Has  it  come  ?  "  but  "  Is  it  on  the  way  ?  " 
We  are  considering  a  bit  of  the  unfinished  busi 
ness  of  the  world. 

First  we  must  listen  to  the  report  of  the  pro 
gress  already  made.  It  is  such  a  modest  report 
that  we  must  prepare  our  minds  in  order  to  ap 
preciate  it.  The  simple-minded  cynic  must  be 
instructed  in  regard  to  the  extreme  difficulty  and 
complexity  of  the  work  that  has  been  undertaken. 
It  is  nothing  less  than  the  transformation  of  a 
carnivorous,  not  to  say  cannibalistic,  species  into 
an  orderly  society  in  which  each  member  shall 
joyously  and  effectively  work  for  the  welfare  of 
all.  The  first  thing,  of  course,  is  to  catch  your 
cannibals.  This  of  itself  is  no  easy  task,  and  has 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  129 

taken  many  centuries.  It  has  involved  a  vast 
amount  of  wood-chopping  and  road-making,  and 
draining  of  swamps  and  exploring  of  caves  and 
dens.  It  is  a  task  that  is  still  far  from  accom 
plished.  Savagery  is  a  condition  which  cannot 
be  abolished  till  there  is  a  conquest  of  the  earth 
itself.  When  the  cannibals  have  been  caught 
and  tamed  there  comes  the  problem  of  keeping 
them  alive.  They  must  eat  something  —  a  point 
which  many  of  the  missionaries  of  civilization 
have  not  sufficiently  considered.  Ethical  progress 
is  delayed  by  all  sorts  of  economic  complications. 
When  the  natural  man  is  confronted  with  the 
necessity  of  getting  a  living,  robbery  is  the  first 
method  which  suggests  itself  to  him.  When  this 
is  prohibited  he  turns  upon  his  moral  adviser 
with,  "  What  more  feasible  way  do  you  pro 
pose  ? "  The  moral  adviser  has  then  to  turn 
from  the  plain  path  of  pure  ethics,  and  cudgel 
his  poor  wits  trying  to  "  invent  a  little  something 
ingenious  "  to  keep  his  pupil  from  starving.  The 
clever  railer  at  human  kind  who  has  always  had 
a  bank  account  to  fall  back  upon  has  no  idea 
how  much  time  and  thought  have  been  taken  up 
in  such  contrivances. 


130         THE  DIFFICULTIES   OF 

Then  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  mis 
sionaries  of  civilization  have  not  themselves  been 
above  reproach.  The  "multitudes  of  the  heavenly 
hosts  "  might  be  heard  for  a  moment  singing  of 
good  will  among  men,  but  they  did  not  remain 
to  do  the  work.  The  men  of  good  will  who 
were  to  work  out  the  plan  were  very  human 
indeed.  Milton,  in  the  Hymn  "  On  the  Morning 
of  Christ's  Nativity,"  warns  us  of  the  long  interval 
between  the  Christmas  prophecy  and  its  historical 
fulfillment. 

For,  if  such  holy  song 
Enwrap  our  fancy  long, 

Time  will  run  back  and  fetch  the  age  of  gold; 
And  speckled  vanity 
Will  sicken  soon  and  die, 

And  leprous  sin  will  melt  from  earthly  mould; 

Yea,  Truth  and  Justice  then 
Will  down  return  to  men, 

Orbed  in  a  rainbow;  and,  like  glories  wearing, 
Mercy  will  sit  between, 
Throned  in  celestial  sheen, 

With  radiant  feet  the  tissued  clouds  down  steering: 
And  Heaven,  as  at  some  festival, 
Will  open  wide  the  gates  of  her  high  palace  hall. 

But  all  the  imagery  of  the  gala  day  of  peace 
fades  away  before  the  immediate  reality. 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  131 

But  wisest  Fate  says  no, 
This  must  not  yet  be  so. 

This  veto  of  "  wisest  Fate  "  is  not  absolute.  It 
only  calls  a  halt  upon  our  imagination  until  the 
rest  of  our  nature  catches  up  with  it.  Mankind 
is  not  to  have  peace  till  it  has  suffered  for  it  and 
worked  for  it.  The  workmen  must  do  their  work 
over  and  over  again  till  they  have  learned  the 
right  way. 

That  the  "  Christian  nations  "  are  not  hypocrites, 
but  novices  who  have  been  making  some  progress 
toward  the  Christian  ideal,  becomes  evident  when 
we  look  back  over  their  history.  They  are  not  the 
descendants  of  the  simple  shepherds  of  the  plains 
of  Bethlehem.  Far  from  it !  When  they  first  be 
gan  to  "  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians," 
they  were  not  thinking  of  the  beatitudes.  They 
had  not  got  that  far. 

Turn  to  the  Heimskringla  and  read  how  King 
Olaf  converted  the  pagan  bonders. 

"  So  King  Olaf  went  into  the  God-house  and  a 
certain  few  of  his  men  with  him,  and  a  certain 
few  of  the  bonders.  But  when  the  king  came 
whereas  the  gods  were,  there  sat  Thor  the  most 
honored  of  all  the  gods,  adorned  with  gold  and 


132         THE  DIFFICULTIES   OF 

silver.  Then  King  Olaf  hove  up  the  gold-wrought 
rod  that  he  had  in  his  hand  and  smote  Thor  that 
he  fell  down  from  the  stall ;  and  therewith  ran  forth 
all  the  king's  men  and  tumbled  down  all  the  gods 
from  their  stalls.  But  whiles  the  king  was  in  the 
God-house  was  Iron-Skeggi  slain  without,  even  at 
the  very  door,  and  that  deed  did  the  king's  men. 
So  when  the  king  was  come  back  to  his  folk  he 
bade  the  bonders  take  one  of  two  things,  either  all 
be  christened,  or  else  abide  the  brunt  of  battle  with 
him.  But  after  the  death  of  Skeggi  there  was  no 
leader  among  the  folk  of  the  bonders  to  raise  up 
a  banner  against  King  Olaf.  So  the  choice  was 
taken  of  them  to  go  to  the  king  and  obey  his  bid 
ding.  Then  King  Olaf  christened  all  folk  that 
were  there  and  took  hostages  of  the  bonders  that 
they  would  hold  to  their  christening.  Thereafter 
King  Olaf  caused  men  of  his  wend  over  all  parts 
of  Thrandheim;  and  now  spoke  no  man  against 
the  faith  of  Christ.  And  so  were  all  folk  christened 
in  the  country-side." 

That  is  the  way  the  nations  of  the  north  were 
first  christianized.  What  is  the  difference  between 
Thor  and  the  Christ  ?  the  simple-hearted  people 
would  ask.  "  The  difference,"  said  King  Olaf,  "  is 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  133 

very  fundamental,  and  it  requires  little  theological 
training  to  see  it.  It  is  this :  the  Christ  is  stronger. 
If  you  don't  believe  it,  I  '11 "  —  but  they  did  be 
lieve  it. 

It  is  evident  that  there  were  some  points  in 
Christianity  that  King  Olaf  did  not  appreciate. 
To  cultivate  these  fruits  of  the  spirit  required  men 
of  a  different  temper.  Their  work  is  not  all  done 
yet.  It  is  progressing. 

There  is  one  complication  in  the  work  of  peace 
making  which  has  not  been  sufficiently  considered. 
It  is  the  recurrence  of  Youth.  I  have  listened  to 
the  arguments  against  war  at  a  great  Peace  Con 
gress.  The  reasoning  was  strong,  the  statement 
of  facts  conclusive.  War  was  shown  to  be  cruel 
and  foolish,  and  incredibly  expensive.  The  au 
dience,  consisting  of  right-minded  and  very  intel 
ligent  people,  was  convinced  of  the  justice  of  the 
cause  of  Peace.  Why,  then,  does  not  the  cause 
triumph  ? 

In  such  cases  I  am  in  the  habit  of  looking  about 
with  the  intent  to  fix  the  responsibility  where 
it  belongs,  on  those  who  were  not  at  the  meeting. 
Mature  life  was  well  represented,  but  there  was  a 


134         THE   DIFFICULTIES   OF 

suspicious  absence  of  young  men  in  the  twenties. 
Ah !  I  said,  there  is  the  difficulty.  We  can't  be 
sure  of  lasting  peace  until  we  make  it  more  inter 
esting  to  these  young  absentees.  They  '11  all  be 
peace  men  by  and  by,  but  meanwhile  there  is  no 
knowing  what  trouble  they  may  get  us  into. 

John  Fiske  traced  the  influence  which  the  pro 
longation  of  infancy  has  had  on  the  progress  of 
civilization.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  equally 
great  results  would  flow  from  any  discovery  by 
which  the  period  of  middle  age  could  be  pro 
longed  beyond  its  present  term.  War  would  be 
abolished  without  any  more  ado.  A  uniformly 
middle-aged  community  would  be  immune  from 
any  attack  of  militant  fever. 

It  happens,  however,  that  every  once  in  a  while 
the  hot  passions  of  youth  carry  all  before  them. 
The  account  of  what  happened  at  the  beginning 
of  the  civil  wars  in  Israel  is  typical.  King  Reho- 
boam  called  a  meeting  of  the  elder  statesmen  of 
his  kingdom.  They  outlined  a  policy  that  was 
eminently  conciliatory.  But  we  are  told,  "  He  for 
sook  the  counsel  of  the  old  men  which  they  had 
given  him,  and  consulted  with  the  young  men  that 
were  grown  up  with  him  and  which  stood  by  him." 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  135 

That 's  the  difficulty  !  The  hardest  thing  about 
a  good  policy  is  to  get  it  accepted  by  the  people 
who  have  the  power.  What  avails  the  wisdom  of 
the  old  men  when  all  the  young  men  are  "  spoil 
ing  for  a  fight  ?  "  Something  more  is  needed  than 
statesman-like  plans  for  strengthening  the  frame 
work  of  civilization.  You  may  have  a  fireproof 
structure,  but  you  are  not  safe  so  long  as  it  is 
crammed  with  highly  inflammable  material. 

There  is  a  periodicity  in  the  passion  for  war.  It 
marks  the  coming  into  power  of  a  new  generation. 
A  quarter  of  a  century  from  now  "the  good  gray 
poet"  Rudyard  Kipling  may  be  singing  sweet 
lyrics  of  peace.  All  things  come  in  time.  The 
Kipling  we  know  simply  utters  the  sentiments  of 
"  the  young  men  brought  up  with  him."  What 
he  has  been  to  his  contemporaries  Tennyson  was 
to  the  generation  before.  Kipling  never  wrote  a 
more  scornful  arraignment  of  peace  or  a  more 
passionate  glorification  of  war  than  Tennyson's 
"  Maud." 

We  are  listening  to  the  invective  of  a  youth 
whose  aspirations  have  been  crushed  and  ideals 
shattered  by  a  civilization  that  seems  to  him  to  be 
soulless.  He  has  seen  something  which  to  him  is 


136         THE   DIFFICULTIES   OF 

infinitely  more  cruel  than  the  battle  between  con 
tending  hosts 

Why  do  they  prate  of  the  blessings  of  peace  ?  we  have  made  them 
a  curse, 

Pickpockets,  each  hand  lusting  for  all  that  is  not  its  own ; 

And  lust  of  gain,  in  the  spirit  of  Cain,  is  it  better  or  worse 

Than  the  heart  of  the  citizen  hissing  in  war  on  his  own  hearth 
stone  ? 

We  are  made  to  see  the  inglorious  peace  in 
which  men  seek  only  their  own  ease. 

Peace  sitting  under  her  olive,  and  slurring  the  days  gone  by, 
When  the  poor  are  hovelPd  and  hustled  together,  each  sex,  like 

swine, 
When  only  the  ledger  lives,  and  when  only  not  all  men  lie. 

From  the  evils  of  a  soulless  commercialism, 
and  from  the  inanities  of  fashion,  what  is  the  way 
of  escape  *?  From  the  evils  of  peace  he  turns 
to  the  heroism  of  war. 

I  wish  I  could  hear  again 
The  chivalrous  battle  song. 

Ah  God,  for  a  man  with  heart,  head,  hand, 
Like  some  of  the  simple  great  ones  gone 
For  ever  and  ever  by, 
One  still  strong  man  in  a  blatant  land. 

At  last,  breaking  in  upon  the  deadly  stupidity 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  137 

and  selfishness  of  the  common  life,  is  the  noise  of 
battle :  — 

it  lightened  my  despair 

When  I  thought  that  a  war  would  arise  in  defence  of  the  right, 
That  an  iron  tyranny  now  should  bend  or  cease, 
The  glory  of  manhood  stand  on  his  ancient  height, 
Nor  Britain's  one  sole  God  be  the  millionaire. 

Let  it  go  or  stay,  so  I  wake  to  the  higher  aims 

Of  a  land  that  has  lost  for  a  little  her  lust  of  gold, 

And  love  of  a  peace  that  was  full  of  wrongs  and  shames, 

Horrible,  hateful,  monstrous,  not  to  be  told ; 

And  hail  once  more  to  the  banner  of  battle  unroll' d  ! 

That  was  an  appeal  to  Young  England,  the 
England  that  was  too  young  to  remember  the 
Napoleonic  wars  and  was  thirsting  for  an  experi 
ence  of  its  own. 

We  may  see  in  such  an  outburst  of  the 
militant  spirit  only  the  recrudescence  of  savagery. 
It  is  better  to  treat  it  seriously,  for  it  is  some 
thing  which  each  generation  must  reckon  with. 
Tennyson  sums  up  the  matter  from  the  stand 
point  of  ardent  youth  :  — 

Let  it  flame  or  fade,  and  the  war  roll  down  like  a  wind, 
We  have  proved  we  have  hearts  in  a  cause,  we  are  noble  still, 
And  myself  have  awaked,  as  it  seems,  to  the  better  mind. 
It  is  better  to  fight  for  the  good  than  to  rail  at  the  ill ; 
I  have  felt  with  my  native  land,  I  am  one  with  my  kind, 
I  embrace  the  purpose  of  God,  and  the  doom  assign' d. 


138         THE  DIFFICULTIES   OF 

It  is  easy  enough  to  dismiss  all  this  as  mere  va 
poring.  But  it  is  a  protest  which  must  be  heeded, 
for  it  expresses  a  real  experience.  There  are  things 
worse  than  war.  A  sordid  slothfulness  is  worse.  A 
cowardly  acquiescence  in  injustice  is  worse.  It 
is  a  real  revelation  when  to  the  heart  of  youth 
comes  a  sudden  sense  of  the  meaning  of  life.  It  is 
not  a  treasure  to  be  preserved  with  miserly  care 
fulness.  It  is  to  be  nobly  hazarded.  It  is  better 
to  light  for  the  good  than  to  rail,  however  elo 
quently,  against  the  ill.  To  feel  for  one's  native 
land,  to  unite  in  generous  comradeship  with  one's 
kind,  to  endure  hardness  for  a  noble  cause, — 
these  things  are  of  the  essence  of  manhood. 

In  times  of  national  peril  such  awakening  has 
come.  Many  a  man  has  then  for  the  first  time 
discovered  that  he  has  a  soul.  He  has  cried  out, 
"  Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of 
the  Lord." 

Now  just  here  we  peace  men  may  see  our  most 
inspiring  bit  of  unfinished  business.  War  has  been 
idealized;  it  is  left  to  us  to  idealize  peace.  It  can 
not  be  done  till  we  bring  out  all  its  heroic  possi 
bilities.  If  it  means  dull  stagnation,  selfish  ease, 
the  prosperity  that  can  be  measured  in  dollars  and 


THE   PEACEMAKERS  139 

cents,  there  is  sure  to  come  a  revulsion  against  it. 
The  gospel  of  the  full  dinner-pail  and  the  pletho 
ric  pocket-book  does  not  satisfy.  If  the  choice  is 
between  commercialism  and  militarism  we  need 
not  wonder  if  many  an  idealist  chooses  the  latter 
as  the  less  perilous  course.  It  seems  less  threaten 
ing  toward  the  things  for  which  he  cares. 

The  call  is  for  a  new  chivalry.  Our  duty  is  not 
only  to  keep  the  peace,  but  to  make  a  peace  that 
is  worth  keeping.  This  is  no  easy  task.  It  means 
the  humanizing  of  all  our  activities.  Everywhere 
a  human  ideal  must  be  placed  above  every  other 
kind  of  success.  Religion  must  be  lifted  above 
ecclesiasticism ;  and  business  honor  above  the  vul 
gar  standards  of  commercialism.  The  machinery 
of  civilization  must  be  made  subservient  to  man. 
More  careers  must  be  opened  for  men  of  the  sol 
dierly  spirit  whose  ambition  is  for  service.  The 
new  generation  must  be  shown  what  opportunities 
the  world's  business  and  politics  offer  to  great 
hearted  gentlemen  who  are  willing  to  risk  some 
thing  for  a  cause.  The  kind  of  peace  which  the 
world  needs  cannot  be  had  for  the  asking.  It  comes 
high,  —  but  it  is  worth  the  price. 


THE    LAND    OF    THE    LARGE    AND 
CHARITABLE    AIR 


Are  you  not  constrayned  (my  fellow  Academicks)  to  sub 
scribe  to  this  my  opinion  that  the  knowledge  of  no  nation  is  so 
necessary  as  the  searching  out  of  a  man's  own  Country  and  the 
manners  thereof  and  the  right  understanding  of  that  Common- 
weale  whereof  each  one  of  us  is  a  part  and  member.  The  Lamise 
that  are  a  certaine  kind  of  monsters  are  laughed  at  in  the  Poeti- 
call  Fables  in  that  they  were  so  blinde  at  home  that  they  could 
not  see  their  own  affaires,  could  foresee  nothing  ;  but  when  they 
were  once  gone  from  home  they  were  accounted  the  most  sharpe- 
sighted  and  curious  searchers  of  all  others.  .  .  .  [Are  not  they] 
very  ridiculous  when  as  by  taking  long  voyages  unto  farre  remote 
people,  after  they  have  curiously  sought  out  all  matters  amongst 
them  are  ignorant  of  the  principall  things  at  home  and  know  not 
what  is  contayned  within  the  precincts  of  their  country,  and  are 
reckoned  altogether  strangers  on  their  native  soile  ?  —  CORYAT'S 
Crudities. 

THE  remark  that  Boston  is  not  so  much  a 
place  as  a  state  of  mind  is  one  of  the  highest 
compliments  ever  paid  to  that  city.  Places  are 
common  enough,  the  maps  are  dotted  with  them, 
but  a  state  of  mind  is  a  mark  of  distinction.  The 
Bostonian  enjoys  his  state  of  mind  none  the  less 


LARGE  AND  CHARITABLE  AIR     141 

because  he  is  aware  that  outsiders  are  not  always 
able  to  enter  into  it. 

Only  those  places  which  have  become  symbolic 
of  mental  or  moral  traits  are  remembered.  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah  were  once  towns  of  some  commer 
cial  importance.  We  think  of  them,  however,  not 
as  trade  centres,  but  as  sins.  Babylon,  according  to 
a  doctrine  of  spiritual  correspondences  long  since 
established,  is  another  name  for  proud  and  cruel 
worldliness.  It  is  likely  so  to  remain,  in  spite  of 
the  discovery  of  clay  tablets  which  show  that 
many  of  its  people  were  estimable  citizens  who 
practiced  domestic  economy  and  collected  their 
debts  by  due  process  of  law.  All  we  have  to  say 
is  that  those  who  acted  in  this  commonplace  way 
were  not  typical,  —  in  fact,  they  were  quite  un- 
Babylonian.  In  like  manner,  Zion  represents  no 
longer  a  hill  whose  altitude  may  be  prosaically 
estimated  according  to  the  metric  system.  It  is  a 
highly  exalted  frame  of  pious  joy. 

It  is  strange  that,  with  all  the  ingenuity  that  has 
been  shown  in  inventing  new  text-books  for  the 
use  of  schools,  no  one  has  compiled  a  Psychological 
Geography.  The  materials  are  ample.  It  only 
needs  some  one  with  a  scientific  imagination,  or, 


1 42     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

rather,  with  a  capacity  for  writing  imaginative 
science,  to  make  it  a  success.  Eliminating  those 
communities  whose  states  of  mind  are  so  mixed 
as  to  be  unclassinahle,  the  way  would  be  clear 
for  a  very  pretty  series  of  generalizations.  There 
would  be  maps  with  isothermal  lines  uniting  places 
of  equal  degrees  of  warmth  of  temperament  or 
frigidity  of  manner.  Weather  charts  would  show 
the  direction  of  the  various  winds  of  doctrine  and 
the  storm  centres,  religious  and  political.  The  the 
ory  of  moral  cyclones  and  anti-cyclones  would  be 
adequately  explained.  There  would  be  maps  in 
colors  indicating  the  communities  situated  on  the 
plateaus  of  conscious  ethical  and  intellectual  supe 
riority.  These  often  rise  into  the  arid,  or  at  least 
semi-arid,  belt.  In  sharp  contrast  with  these  are 
the  luxuriant  bottom  lands,  where  less  favored 
peoples  dwell  in  happy  ignorance  of  their  low 
estate.  The  "principal  products"  would  be  graphi 
cally  illustrated.  One  section,  being  without  nat 
ural  resources,  is  given  over  to  the  manufacture 
of  novelties,  while  another  is  rich  in  fossils.  The 
distribution  of  fads  may  be  shown  to  advantage. 
Some  localities  are  almost  barren,  while  others  are 
naturally  faddy. 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         143 

When  he  comes  to  the  Points  of  the  Compass 
the  most  matter-of-fact  psychological  geographer 
will  forget  the  cold  mannerisms  of  his  science  and 
become  poetical.  North,  South,  East,  West,  these 
are  vast  symbols  of  psychic  forces.  He  would  not 
think  of  putting  at  the  head  of  the  chapter  the  pic 
ture,  from  the  old  Geography,  of  the  disconsolate 
urchin  with  his  face  to  the  north  and  his  arms 
extended  in  rigid  but  reluctant  testimony  to  the 
fact  that  "  East  is  East  and  West  is  West."  What 
does  this  featureless  boy  know  of  those  tremendous 
forces  whose  age-long  contests  have  made  the  his 
tory  of  the  world  ?  What  does  he  know  of  the 
hardiness  and  the  prowess  that  make  the  true 
North?  If  he  were  forcibly  turned  around,  his 
face  would  be  as  expressionless  as  ever.  Such  a 
mannikin  never  felt  a  sudden  longing  for  "a 
beaker  full  of  the  warm  South." 

Art  must  be  called  to  the  aid  of  science.  Each 
point  of  the  compass  has  an  expression  of  its  own. 
One  should  be  able  by  looking  at  the  face  of  the 
man  in  the  picture  to  know  the  direction.  There 
is  no  mistaking  the  qualities  which  grow  only 
where  there  is  a  northerly  exposure.  The  Orient 
and  the  Occident  are  not  to  be  confounded. 


i44     THE   LAND   OF   THE    LARGE 

Were  some  affluent  citizen  to  endow  a  chair  of 
psycho-geographical  science  in  one  of  our  leading 
universities,  especial  attention  should  be  paid  to 
the  teaching  of  Systematic  Americanism.  It  is  a 
branch  now  much  neglected.  The  professor  should 
take  pains  to  instruct  his  "  fellow  Academicks"  in 
the  manners  and  customs  of  their  own  country,  so 
that  they  should  no  longer  be  reckoned  strangers 
on  their  native  soil.  They  should  be  taught  to 
avoid  entangling  analogies  drawn  from  the  expe 
rience  of  other  lands,  and  to  look  directly  at  the 
subject-matter.  When  they  see  something  going 
wrong,  they  should  not  jump  at  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  a  repetition  of  the  classic  tragedy  of  the 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  —  for  it 
may  be  something  quite  different.  When  there 
is  a  popular  movement  on  the  prairies,  they  should 
not  begin  to  talk  of  the  French  Revolution  and  of 
the  excesses  of  the  proletariat.  Before  they  talk  in 
European  fashion  of  the  "classes  and  the  masses," 
they  should  make  certain  that  we  have  such 
things,  and  if  we  have,  that  there  is  a  sure  way  of 
telling  which  is  which.  The  Old-World  generali 
zations  about  the  upper  and  lower  and  middle 
classes  should  be  well  shaken  before  using. 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         145 

Those  who  elect  the  course  in  Americanism 
should  be  taught  to  overcome  the  nervous  fright 
to  which  bookish  people  are  subject  at  the  appear 
ance  of  any  man  in  public  life  who  shows  signs 
of  unusual  virility.  It  is  a  weakness  of  those  who 
are  more  familiar  with  the  careers  of  Csesar  and 
Napoleon  than  with  the  temper  of  their  fellow- 
citizens.  In  the  early  seventies  there  were  aca 
demic  minds  thoroughly  convinced  that  they  were 
watching  the  Republic  in  its  death  struggle  with 
Caesarism.  Curiously  enough,  they  fixed  upon 
plain  Ulysses  Grant  to  act  the  part  of  Csesar.  It 
would  have  been  hard  to  find  one  less  fitted  for 
rfre  role.  When  we  look  back  and  contrast  what 
really  happened  with  what  the  well-read  specta 
tors  thought  was  happening,  we  are  reminded  of 
the  remark  of  the  British  matron  to  her  husband 
as  they  left  the  theatre  where  they  had  been  see 
ing  the  play  of  "  Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  "  How 
unlike  the  home  life  of  our  dear  Queen ! " 

The  great  thing,  as  President  Roosevelt  has 
often  reminded  us,  is  to  "  think  nationally."  This 
is  no  small  achievement.  A  nation  is  a  psycho- 
geographical  fact  which  it  requires  a  very  great 
effort  of  the  imagination  to  conceive.  The  same. 


146     THE  LAND   OF   THE   LARGE 

word  represents  a  land  and  the  people  who  in 
habit  it.  The  physical  features  of  the  landscape 
have  their  spiritual  counterparts.  It  may  be  that 
the  landscape  impresses  itself  on  the  imagination 
of  the  race,  or,  as  may  be  maintained  with  equal 
plausibility,  the  imagination  of  a  gifted  race  may 
interpret  the  landscape  and  impress  itself  upon  it 
forever.  In  either  case  there  is  a  recognizable  har 
mony  between  the  two  elements.  In  reading  the 
great  literature  of  Israel  we  never  forget  that  the 
nation  was  desert-born.  "He  found  him  in  a 
desert  place,  he  led  him  about,  he  instructed  him." 
In  psalm  and  prophecy  we  are  conscious  of  bar 
ren  mountain  ranges,  of  rocks  in  a  weary  land,  of 
narrow  valleys  which  laugh  for  very  joy  over  the 
incongruity  between  themselves  and  the  surround 
ing  desolations.  There  is  the  passion  of  the  desert, 
born  of  solitude  and  the  stars.  In  the  prophet  of 
righteousness  there  is  the  same  urgent  note  that 
Bayard  Taylor  catches  in  his  "Bedouin  Song:"  — 

From  the  Desert  I  come  to  thee 

On  a  stallion  shod  with  fire  ; 
And  the  winds  are  left  behind 

In  the  speed  of  my  desire. 

The  impatient  human  cry  is  followed  by  the  re- 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         147 

frain  natural  to  those  whose  lives  are  surrounded 
by  the  eternal  calm  of  the  desert,  — 

Till  the  sun  grows  cold, 

And  the  stars  are  old, 

And  the  leaves  of  the  Judgment  Book  unfold. 

When  we  think  of  the  Greeks  we  think  at  the 
same  time  of 

the  sprinkled  isles 
Lily  on  lily  that  o'erlace  the  sea, 
And  laugh  their  pride  when  the  light  wave  lisps  "Greece." 

England  and  her  Englishmen  are  forever  insep 
arable.  "  This  happy  breed  of  men  "  belong  to 
"  this  little  world,  this  precious  stone  set  in  a  silver 
sea,  this  blessed  plot,  this  England."  That  Great 
Britain  is  an  island  is  more  than  a  fact  of  physical 
geography.  It  is  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
an  insularity  of  sentiment  which  gives  its  pecu 
liar  quality  to  British  patriotism.  There  is  some 
thing  snug  and  homelike  about  it,  as  of  a  family 
that  enjoys  "  the  tumultuous  privacy  of  storm." 

We  become  conscious  of  Spain  and  her  Span 
iards  as  we  read  Longfellow's  lines  :  — 

A  something  sombre  and  severe 

O'er  the  enchanted  landscape  reigned, 

As  if  King  Philip  listened  near 

And  Torquemada,  the  austere, 
His  ghostly  sway  maintained. 


i48     THE   LAND   OF   THE   LARGE 

When  we  come  to  the  United  States  of  Amer 
ica  there  is  a  peculiar  difficulty  in  thinking  and 
feeling  nationally,  because  the  imagination  does 
not  at  once  find  the  physical  facts  to  serve  as  sym 
bols.  It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  the  land  as  a  whole. 
When  we  sing  "  My  Country,  't  is  of  thee,"  the 
country  that  is  visualized  is  very  small.  The  au 
thor  of  the  hymn  was  a  New  England  clergyman, 
and  naturally  enough  described  New  England  and 
called  it  America.  It  is  a  land  of  rocks  and  rills 
and  woods,  and  the  hills  are  templed,  in  Puritan 
fashion,  by  white  meeting-houses;  for  the  early 
New  Englander,  like  erring  Israel  of  old,  loved  to 
worship  on  "  the  high  places."  Over  it  all  is  one 
great  tradition :  it  is  the  "  land  of  the  Pilgrims' 
pride." 

The  farmer  in  North  Dakota  loves  his  country, 
too ;  but  the  idea  that  it  is  a  land  of  rocks  and 
rills  and  templed  hills  seems  to  him  rather  far 
fetched.  His  heart  does  not  thrillwith  rapture 
when  he  thinks  of  these  things.  He  can  plow  all 
day  in  the  Red  River  valley  without  striking  a 
stone,  and  he  is  glad  to  have  it  so. 

The  Texan  cultivates  an  exuberant  American 
ism,  but  he  does  not  think  of  his  country  as  the 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         149 

"  land  of  the  Pilgrims'  pride."  Texas  is  not  proud 
of  the  Pilgrims,  and  perhaps  the  Pilgrims  would 
not  have  appreciated  Texas. 

When  the  American  has  come  to  feel,  not  pro- 
vincially,  but  nationally,  the  words  "  my  country  " 
bring  to  his  mind  not  merely  some  familiar  scenes 
of  his  childhood,  but  a  series  of  vast  pictures. 
They  are  broad  and  simple  in  outline.  "  My 
country "  is  no  tight  little  island  shut  out  from 
"  the  envy  of  less  happier  lands."  It  is  continental 
in  its  sweep.  It  lies  open  and  free  to  all.  It  is 
large  and  easy  of  access.  There  is  a  vision  of 
busy  cities  serving  as  its  gateways.  Behind  them 
is  a  pleasant  home-like  land  with  "  a  sweet  inter 
change  of  hill  and  valley."  Beyond  the  moun 
tains  another  scene  opens.  We  see  the  sources  of 
the  strength  of  America  and  feel  the  promise  of 
its  future.  To  see  the  Mississippi  valley  is  to  be 
lieve  in  "  manifest  destiny,"  and  to  take  a  cheerful 
view  of  it.  To  the  ancient  world  the  valley  of  the 
Nile  was  the  symbol  of  fertility.  It  is  a  narrow 
ribbon  of  green  in  the  midst  of  the  desert.  Here 
Plenty  and  Famine  were  in  plain  sight  of  one 
another.  There  was  always  the  suggestion  of 
Pharaoh's  ugly  dream  of  the  lean  kine  devouring 


150     THE   LAND  OF  THE  LARGE 

the  fat  and  well-favored.  But  in  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi  the  fear  of  the  lean  kine  is  dispelled. 
One  may  travel  at  railroad  speed  day  after  day, 
and  still  the  fields  of  wheat  and  corn  smile  upon 
him.  Here  the  ample  land  gives  happy  confidence 
to  men's  prayer  for  daily  bread.  And  beyond  the 
fertile  prairies  "my  country"  stretches  in  high 
plains  and  lofty  mountain  ranges.  Here  are  new 
treasures  waiting  bold  spirits  who  claim  them. 
The  land  has  a  challenge  and  an  invitation. 

What  a  weary  dearth 

Of  the  homes  of  men  !  What  a  wild  delight 
Of  space,  of  room!  What  a  sense  of  seas 
Where  seas  are  not !  What  salt-like  breeze  ! 
What  dust  and  taste  of  quick  alkali ! 

And  beyond  the  mountains  lies  the  American 
Avilion,  where  never  — 

wind  blows  loudly;  but  it  lies 
Deep-meadow' d,  happy,  fair  with  orchard  lawns 
And  bowery  hollows:  crown' d  with  summer  seas. 

And  this  great  land  is  one;  though  it  is  "a  nation 
of  nations  "  it  has  achieved  a  national  conscious 
ness.  There  is  an  atmosphere  about  it  all  which 
we  recognize.  To  breathe  it  is  an  exhilaration. 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         151 

One  loves  to  think  of  it  as  the  land  of  "  the  large 
and  charitable  air." 

The  conception  of  the  continental  proportions 
of  America  did  not  at  once  dawn  upon  its  new 
inhabitants.  They  thought  and  spoke  as  trans 
planted  Englishmen.  Each  of  the  thirteen  States 
was  a  tight  little  republic  insisting  on  its  own 
rights.  Each  plucky  Diogenes  sat  in  its  own  tub, 
saying  to  its  neighbors,  "Get  out  of  my  sun 
shine  ! " 

It  was  only  as  they  turned  westward  that 
Americans  discovered  America,  —  a  discovery 
which  in  some  instances  has  been  long  delayed. 

'"The  West"  is  not  merely  a  geographical  ex 
pression,  it  is  a  state  of  mind  which  is  most  dis 
tinctive  of  the  national  consciousness.  It  is  a 
feeling,  an  irresistible  impulse.  It  is  the  sense  of 
undeveloped  resources  and  limitless  opportuni 
ties.  It  is  associated  with  the  verb  "  to  go."  To 
the  American  the  West  is  the  natural  place  to  go 
to,  as  the  East  is  the  place  to  come  from.  It  is 
synonymous  with  freedom  from  restraint.  It  is 
always  "  out  West." 

Just  where  the  geographical  West  begins  it  is 


152     THE   LAND   OF   THE  LARGE 

not  necessary  to  indicate.  On  the  coast  of  Maine 
you  may  be  shown  a  summer  cottage  and  told 
that  it  belongs  to  a  rich  Westerner  from  Massa 
chusetts.  Massachusetts  is  not  thought  of  as 
exactly  the  Far  West,  but  it  is  far  enough. 

The  psychological  West  begins  at  the  point 
where  the  centre  of  interest  suddenly  shifts  from 
the  day  before  yesterday  to  the  day  after  to-morrow.  ' 
Great  expectations  are  treated  with  the  respect 
that  elsewhere  had  been  reserved  for  accomplished 
facts.  There  is  a  stir  in  the  air  as  if  Humanity 
were  a  new  family  just  setting  up  housekeeping. 
What  a  fine  house  it  is,  and  how  much  room  there 
is  on  the  ground  floor  !  What  a  great  show  it  will 
make  when  all  the  furniture  is  in !  There  is  no 
time  now  for  the  finishing  touches,  but  all  will 
come  in  due  order.  There  is  need  for  unskilled 
labor  and  plenty  of  it.  Let  every  able-bodied  man 
lend  a  hand. 

One  does  not  know  his  America  until  he  has 
been  touched  by  the  Western  fever.  He  must  be 
possessed  by  a  desire  to  take  up  a  claim  and  build 
himself  a  shack  and  invest  in  a  corner  lot  in  a 
Future  Great  City.  He  must  be  capable  of  a 
disinterested  joy  in  watching  the  improvements 


AND   CHARITABLE  AIR         153 

which  other  people  are  making.  Let  the  man  of 
the  East  cling  to  the  old  ways  and  seek  out  the 
old  landmarks.  The  symbol  of  the  West  is  the 
plank  sidewalk  leading  out  from  a  brand-new 
prairie  town  and  pointing  to  a  thriving  suburb 
which  as  yet  exists  only  in  the  mind  of  its  projec 
tor.  There  is  something  prophetic  in  that  side 
walk  on  which  the  foot  of  man  has  never  trod. 

One  who  has  once  had  this  fever  never  com 
pletely  recovers.  Though  he  may  change  his  en 
vironment  he  is  always  subject  to  intermittent 
attacks. 

I  remember  on  my  first  evening  in  Oxford 
sitting  blissfully  on  the  top  of  a  leisurely  tram  car 
that  trundled  along  High  Street.  The  dons  in 
academic  garb  were  on  their  way  to  dinner  in  the 
college  halls,  and  they  looked  just  as  my  imagina 
tion  had  pictured  them.  I  was  introduced  to  one 
of  them.  When  he  learned  that  I  was  an  Ameri 
can,  there  was  a  sudden  thaw  in  his  manner. 

"  Have  you  ever  been  in  Dodge  City,  Kansas'? " 
he  inquired  eagerly. 

I  modestly  replied  that  I  had  only  passed 
through  on  the  railway,  but  I  was  familiar  with 
other  Kansas  towns,  and,  reasoning  from  analogy, 


154     THE   LAND   OF  THE   LARGE 

I  could  tell  what  manner  of  place  it  was.  This 
enough.  I  had  experienced  the  West.  I  was  one 
of  the  initiated.  I  could  enter  into  that  state  of 
mind  represented  by  the  term  Dodge  City.  It  ap 
peared  that  in  the  golden  age,  when  he  and  Dodge 
City  were  both  young,  he  had  sought  his  fortune 
for  some  months  in  Kansas.  He  had  experienced 
the  joys  of  civic  newness,  a  newness  such  as  had 
not  been  in  England  since  the  Heptarchy.  He 
discoursed  of  the  mighty  men  of  those  days  when 
every  man  did  what  was  right  in  his  own  eyes, 
and  good-humoredly  allowed  his  neighbor  to  do 
likewise.  As  we  parted,  he  said,  with  mournful 
acquiescence  in  his  present  estate,  "  Oxford  does 
very  well,  you  know,  but  it  is  n't  Dodge  City." 
If  poetry  is  emotion  remembered  in  tranquillity, 
what  could  be  more  poetical  than  Dodge  City  re 
membered  in  the  tranquillity  of  Oxford  quad 
rangles  ? 

In  this  case  the  poetical  view  was  a  sound  one. 
The  traveler  across  the  newly  developed  States  of 
the  West  has  the  traveler's  license  to  contrast  un 
favorably  that  which  he  sees  with  that  which  he 
left  behind  him  in  his  home  country.  He  may  say 
a  dozen  uncomplimentary  things,  and  each  one 


AND   CHARITABLE  AIR         155 

of  them  may  be  true.  He  may  exhaust  all  his 
stock  adjectives,  as  "  crude  "  and  "  raw  "  and  the 
like.  But  when  he  remarks,  as  did  a  certain  critic, 
that  because  the  country  lacks  "  distinction  "  it  is 
uninteresting,  he  betrays  his  own  limitations. 

It  is  just  that  lack  of  distinction  that  makes 
America  interesting.  Here,  no  longer  distracted 
by  what  is  exceptional,  one  may  take  the  welfare 
of  the  masses  of  men  seriously. 

Here  the  doings  of  men  correspond  to  the  broad  doings  of  the 

day  and  the  night, 
Here  is  what  moves  in  magnificent  masses,  careless  of  particulars. 

When  Shelley  was  an  undergraduate  he  was 
attracted  to  a  lecture  on  mineralogy.  It  seemed  to 
him  a  subject  full  of  poetical  suggestiveness.  His 
expectations  were  disappointed,  and  he  unceremo 
niously  bolted  and  returned  to  his  room.  "  What 
do  you  think  the  man  talked  about?  Stones!  — 
stones  !  —  stones !  I  tell  you  stones  are  not  inter 
esting  —  in  themselves." 

Shelley  was  right.  Stones  are  not  interesting  in 
themselves;  neither  are  railroads,  nor  stockyards, 
nor  new  unpainted  buildings,  nor  endless  corn 
fields.  But  for  that  matter,  neither  are  crumbling 
columns,  nor  old  manuscripts,  nor  the  remains  of 


156     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

feudal  castles  interesting  —  in  themselves.  Things 
become  interesting  only  when  seen  in  relation  to 
the  people  whose  thoughts  they  have  stimulated 
and  whose  imaginations  they  have  stirred. 

America  is  a  fresh  field  for  human  endeavor. 
Here  are  men  busily  making  roads,  bridging  riv 
ers,  building  new  cities.  They  have  been  given 
the  task  of  subduing  a  continent.  But  in  such  con 
flicts  with  Nature  the  conquered  influences  the 
conquerors.  What  impress  does  the  continent 
make  upon  the  minds  of  the  hardy  men  who  are 
mastering  it  *?  What  visions  of  the  future  do  they 
see  which  transform  their  drudgery  into  an  heroic 
adventure  *? 

In  the  case  of  the  older  nations  such  questions 
about  the  beginnings  and  the  ideals  of  the  begin 
ners  cannot  be  answered.  The  formative  period, 
with  all  its  significant  aspirations,  is  buried  in  obli 
vion.  "  Who  thinks  any  more  as  they  thought  ?  " 
we  ask  in  regard  to  the  pioneer  of  Britain.  Poetry 
has  license  to  picture  him  as  a  knight  in  armor 
and  to  tell  how  in  romantic  fashion  he  pitched 

His  tents  beside  the  forest.    And  he  drave 
The  heathen,  and  he  slew  the  beast,  and  felled 
The  forest,  and  let  in  the  sun. 


AND  CHARITABLE  AIR         157 

It  was  all  a  long  time  ago,  and  the  men  who  did 
these  things  are  not  clearly  revealed.  Not  being 
able  to  get  at  their  ideals,  we  attribute  to  them 
those  which  we  think  appropriate. 

The  historians  are  troubled  by  their  lack  of 
authentic  material.  They  are  like  the  magicians, 
astrologers,  sorcerers,  and  Chaldeans  of  the  court 
of  Nebuchadnezzar.  Nebuchadnezzar  had  a 
dream  that  he  knew  was  very  important,  but 
before  he  could  get  it  interpreted  by  his  wise  men 
he  forgot  what  it  was.  They  were  good  at  inter 
pretations,  and  could  have  made  one  to  fit  if  only 
the  king  had  brought  the  dream  with  him  so  that 
they  could  try  it  on.  But  that  was  the  very  thing 
he  could  not  do. 

The  founders  of  London  and  Paris  had  doubt 
less  their  dreams  of  the  future;  but  alas!  they  have 
long  since  been  forgotten.  But  Chicago  has  not 
had  time  to  forget.  Everything  is  still  vivid.  Men 
walk  the  streets  of  the  great  city  who  remember 
it  when  it  was  no  bigger  than  the  Londinium  of 
the  time  of  the  Csesars.  They  have  with  their  own 
eyes  watched  every  step  in  the  civic  development 
and  they  have  been  a  part  of  all  that  they  have 
seen.  The  Londoner  has  seen  only  a  passing 


158     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

phase  of  his  London;  the  greater  part  of  its  history 
is  received  on  hearsay  evidence.  The  Chicagoan 
sees  his  Chicago  steadily  and  sees  it  whole.  No 
wonder  that  there  is  a  self-consciousness  about  the 
new  metropolis  that  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  old. 
Its  greatness  has  been  thrust  upon  it  suddenly, 
and  there  is  a  full  realization  of  its  value. 

The  genuine  American  who  is  the  maker  of  the 
new  fortunes  of  the  world,  and  who  is  in  love  with 
his  work,  has  not  been  adequately  portrayed  in 
literature.  It  requires  an  ample  imagination  to  do 
justice  to  his  character.  There  must  be  a  min 
gling  of  realism  and  romance.  The  realism  must 
not  be  the  minute,  painstaking  portraiture  of  a 
Miss  Austen,  but  the  hearty,  out-of-door  reality  of 
a  Fielding.  The  American  Fielding  has  not  yet 
appeared,  but  what  a  good  time  he  will  have  when 
he  comes !  What  a  host  of  characters  after  his  own 
heart  he  will  find !  The  American  Scott,  too,  is 
called  for  to  give  us  a  story  of  American  life 
which  will  read  as  well  on  the  edge  of  a  clearing 
in  the  forest  as  "  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  "  did  in 
the  trenches  of  Torres  Vedras,  when  the  soldiers 
forgot  the  enemy's  shells  as  they  gave  a  glorious 
shout  over  the  poet's  lines,  which  their  captain  was 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         159 

reading  to  them.  I  like  that  story,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  a  recent  critic  declares  that  to  like  it 
shows  an  uncultivated  taste.  "This  is  not," he  says, 
"  a  test  of  poetry.  An  audience  less  likely  to  be 
critical,  a  situation  less  likely  to  induce  criticism, 
can  hardly  be  imagined."  Nevertheless,  Scott 
would  much  rather  have  written  lines  that  rang 
true  to  soldiers  in  the  hour  of  battle,  than  to  have 
been  given  a  high  mark  by  the  most  competent 
corrector  of  daily  themes. 

The  imagination  of  Hawthorne,  brooding  over 
the  past,  repeopled  the  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables  with  the  successive  generations.  But  there 
is  another  kind  of  romance,  in  which  the  imagina 
tion  is  projected  into  the  future.  Looking  at  the 
new  house  not  yet  enclosed  against  the  storm,  it 
dreams  dreams  and  sees  visions.  There  is  a  story 
there,  also,  and  the  best  of  it  is  that  it  is  to  be 
continued. 

A  shrewd  old  New  England  farmer  recounted 
to  me  the  warlike  exploits  of  his  family.  He  him 
self  had  been  in  Gettysburg,  and  each  generation 
since  the  time  of  the  French  and  Indian  wars  had 
had  its  soldier.  His  son  had  been  shot  at  Santiago. 


160     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

"  The  bullet  went  clean  through  his  body,"  he 
said,  indicating  a  course  which  seemed  to  me  neces 
sarily  fatal.  I  expressed  sympathy.  "  Oh,  it  did  n't 
hurt  him  much,"  he  said,  "  it  seemed  to  go  through 
a  vacant  spot." 

That  there  are  vacant  spots  in  the  character 
of  the  typical  man  of  the  Western  world  no  one 
would  be  more  ready  to  admit  than  he.  His  short 
comings  are  obvious.  Yet  most  of  those  which 
have  been  harshly  commented  upon  by  the  world 
are  of  the  kind  that  might  be  commended  to  the 
consideration  of  the  kindly  Pardoner.  Some  of  his 
weaknesses  touch  upon  nobleness.  Those  who 
best  know  his  environment  and  the  work  he  has 
done  are  most  ready  to  grant  him  a  reasonable 
degree  of  indulgence. 

The  most  serious  charges  against  him  are  that 
he  is  a  boastful  materialist  enamored  of  crude  bulk, 
and  that  he  has  trampled  upon  the  old  sanctities 
and  is  a  worshiper  of  the  almighty  dollar.  There 
is  some  color  for  these  charges  in  his  manners,  but 
those  who  make  them  have  certainly  not  under 
stood  his  spirit.  "  The  Western  Goth,"  Lowell 
called  him.  The  Goths  had  a  bad  reputation  once 
as  wanton  destroyers  of  ancient  art.  But  after  they 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         161 

had  had  their  fling  and  had  settled  down,  the 
Teutonic  barbarians  showed  that  they  could 
make  a  thing  or  two  themselves.  Gothic  has 
long  since  ceased  to  be  a  term  of  reproach.  Even 
in  the  destruction  of  the  ancient,  archaeologists 
now  admit  that  the  Goths  did  not  do  as  much 
harm  as  was  at  first  feared.  The  real  destroyers 
of  ancient  Rome  have  been  the  Romans. 

From  the  fact  that  western  America  is  a  place 
where  people  are  actively  engaged  in  making 
money,  and  that  they  find  their  work  so  interest 
ing  that  they  like  to  talk  about  it,  the  superficial 
observer  jumps  at  the  conclusion  that  this  is  the 
seat  of  the  cult  of  wealth-worship.  But  there  is  a 
vast  difference  between  making  a  thing  and  wor 
shiping  it.  It  is  reported  that  one  of  the  varied 
industries  of  Great  Britain  is  the  manufacture  of 
molten  images.  It  is  undoubtedly  a  sin,  but  the 
British  manufacturer  comforts  himself  with  the 
reflection  that  he  only  breaks  half  the  command 
ment;  he  makes  the  idol,  but  he  does  not  bow 
down  before  it. 

Worship  is  not  talkative  or  boastful.  It  is  re 
served  and  self-abasing.  The  worshiper  accepts 
the  superiority  of  the  object  of  his  devotion  as 


1 62     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

a  fact  not  to  be  questioned.  For  such  serious- 
minded  worship  of  wealth  go  to  the  English  moral 
tales  so  popular  a  generation  or  two  ago,  before 
the  wave  of  democracy  came  in.  Then  the  afflu 
ent  Squire  and  his  lady  were  lifted  into  the  place 
of  superior  beings.  They  dispensed  bounty  after 
the  manner  of  Providence  to  their  poorer  neigh 
bors,  and  there  was  no  thought  of  questioning  their 
ways.  They  were  rich,  as  had  been  their  fathers 
and  mothers  before  them,  and  all  other  virtues 
were  attributed  to  them  by  fond  superstition. 

The  men  of  the  Western  mining  camps,  where 
millionaires  are  made  in  a  day,  have  no  concep 
tion  of  such  a  reverential  attitude  toward  the  pos 
sessor  of  wealth.  When  you  see  them  in  the  eager 
pursuit  of  dollars,  you  are  watching  not  their  re 
ligion,  but  their  sport.  They  care  for  money  as 
the  fox-hunter  cares  for  the  fox.  They  admire  the 
man  who  wins  the  prize,  in  proportion  to  the  skill 
and  pluck  which  he  has  exhibited.  But  there  are 
no  illusions  of  a  personal  superiority  imparted  by 
the  possession  of  property.  That  is  impossible  in 
a  community  where  everybody  is  acquainted  with 
the  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  rich. 

The  man  who  is  conspicuously  successful  in 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         163 

the  national  sport  is  undoubtedly  an  object  of  in 
terest,  but  it  is  interest  of  the  superficial  sort.  He 
is  not  the  man  whom  the  people  delight  to  honor, 
and  he  usually  has  the  good  sense  to  know  it.  In 
a  Western  newspaper  my  attention  was  attracted 
by  the  headlines  :  "  Noah  a  Millionaire."  It  seems 
that  some  one  had  calculated  that,  even  after 
making  allowance  for  the  low  price  of  labor  and 
materials  in  his  day,  the  Ark  must  have  cost  over 
half  a  million  dollars,  and  that  Noah  must  have 
had  at  least  a  million  in  order  prudently  to  un 
dertake  the  work.  It  put  the  patriarch  in  a  fresh 
light,  and  I  read  the  article  diligently,  as  did  most 
of  my  fellow  passengers  on  the  train.  But  that  was 
the  end  of  it;  our  opinions  about  diluvian  and 
antediluvian  matters  remained  unchanged.  I  sup 
pose  that  the  publicity  given  to  the  doings  of  our 
conspicuously  rich  contemporaries  has  no  greater 
significance. 

The  millionaire  who  cares  for  the  admiration  of 
his  fellow-citizens  must  do  more  than  accumulate. 
When  he  has  made  his  fortune  the  next  question 
is,  "  What  will  he  do  with  it  2  "  He  must  do  some 
thing  or  sink  into  the  rank  of  nobodies.  Even  the 
most  selfish  and  parsimonious  feels  that  something 


1 64     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

is  required  of  him.  A  great  part  of  the  stream  of 
new  wealth  may  be  wasted,  so  far  as  the  higher 
interests  of  society  are  concerned,  but  a  certain 
part  of  it  is  pretty  certain  to  be  directed  toward 
those  same  higher  interests.  The  process  is  like 
that  which  goes  on  with  an  hydraulic  ram.  Where 
there  is  a  good  stream  of  water,  one  can  afford  to 
lose  most  of  it.  The  waste  water,  before  it  escapes 
down  the  hill,  pumps  a  slender  but  sufficient  stream 
into  the  second  story. 

Indeed,  it  is  the  interest  of  our  millionaires  in 
art,  science,  and  religion  which  has  created  a  puz 
zling  ethical  problem.  They  are  not  content  to 
be  mere  money-getters.  They  aspire  to  be  bene 
factors  on  a  large  scale.  But  what  if  the  wealth 
so  freely  offered  has  not  been  honestly  come  by  ? 
What  if  the  best  institutions  should  hesitate  to  re 
ceive  it  *?  The  poor  rich  man  cannot  contemplate 
such  a  refusal  with  equanimity.  It  would  inter 
fere  with  the  fulfillment  of  his  most  cherished 
plans.  To  have  unlimited  opportunities  to  make 
money,  and  to  be  hindered  in  giving  it  away, 
seems  to  him  like  building  a  trunk  line  of  rail 
road  and  then  being  denied  terminal  facilities.  Of 
course  he  could  change  his  plans  and  keep  it  all 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         165 

himself,  but  to  a  man  who  had  been  accustomed 
to  "  doing  things  "  that  would  be  a  humiliating 
anti-climax. 

The  fact  that  the  American  is  greatly  absorbed 
in  his  work  with  material  things  is  no  sufficient 
basis  of  the  charge  of  materialism  that  is  lightly 
brought  against  him.  The  crucial  question  is, 
"  What  do  the  things  stand  for  in  his  mind  *?  Are 
they  finalities,  or  are  they  means  to  an  end  ?  "  The 
most  appalling  picture  of  a  purely  materialistic 
civilization  is  that  given  in  the  book  of  the  Reve 
lation.  It  is  an  inventory  of  the  wealth  of  the 
Babylon  which  was  Imperial  Rome.  The  inven 
tory  is  an  indictment.  "  The  merchandise  of  gold, 
and  silver,  and  precious  stones,  and  of  pearls,  and 
fine  linen,  and  purple,  and  silk,  and  scarlet,  and 
all  thyine  wood,  and  all  manner  vessels  of  ivory, 
and  all  manner  vessels  of  most  precious  wood,  and 
of  brass,  and  iron,  and  marble,  and  cinnamon,  and 
odours,  and  ointments,  and  frankincense,  and  wine, 
and  oil,  and  fine  flour,  and  wheat,  and  beasts,  and 
sheep,  and  horses,  and  chariots,  and  slaves,  and 
souls  of  men." 

The  heart  grows  sick  when  the  list  of  commod- 


1 66     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

ities  ends  with  the  "  souls  of  men."    What  were 

they  worth,  measured  against  all  that  goes  before  *? 

A  very  different  impression  comes  as  we  read 

Joaquin  Miller's  exultant  cry  over  the  West :  — 

O  heart  of  the  world's  heart,  West!  my  West! 
Look  up !    Look  out !    There  are  fields  of  kine, 
There  are  clover  fields  that  are  red  as  wine, 

There  are  emerald  seas  of  corn  and  cane, 

There  are  isles  of  oak  and  a  harvest  plain 
Where  brown  men  bend  to  the  bending  grain, 
There  are  temples  of  God  and  towns  new  born. 

And  the  hearts  of  oak  and  the  hands  of  horn 
Have  fashioned  them  all,  and  a  world  beside. 

This  frank  delight  in  the  riches  of  the  earth  is 
not  materialistic.  The  souls  of  men  are  not  in 
the  market.  They  form  the  supreme  standard  of 
value.  Materialism  is  not  a  disease  to  which  na 
tions  are  subject  in  their  lusty  youth.  It  comes 
with  senile  decay. 

Sometimes  when  we  are  wearied  with  the  in 
tense  activity  of  modern  life  we  quote  the  saying, 
"  Things  are  in  the  saddle."  Perhaps  our  sympa 
thy  is  misplaced.  If  the  poor  Things  could  speak, 
they  would  tell  us  that,  so  far  from  being  in  the 
saddle,  they  are  under  the  lash  of  furious  young 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         167 

idealists  who  give  them  no  rest.  It  is  the  nature  of 
a  Thing  to  "  stay  put,"  but  these  headstrong  youths 
despise  this  conservative  bias.  They  are  no  respect 
ers  of  Things,  being  wholly  absorbed  in  Purposes. 
To  see  Things  in  undisputed  possession,  go  into 
"  the  best  room  "  of  a  respectable  old  farmhouse. 
Here  the  Thing  has  the  place  of  honor,  and  the 
Person  is  a  base  intruder,  having  no  rights  of  his 
own.  The  priestess  hovers  occasionally  around 
her  sacred  Things,  waving  her  feather  duster  as  a 
mystic  wand,  and  then  leaves  them  in  respectful 
gloom.  Nothing  short  of  a  death  in  the  family 
would  induce  her  to  disturb  them.  Go  into  a  busy 
workshop,  and  you  may  see  how  the  Thing  may 
be  taught  to  know  its  place.  It  is  always  at  the 
mercy  of  the  innovating  Intelligence.  When  a 
new  Idea  comes,  the  old  Thing  which  had  hereto 
fore  had  a  useful  function  is  thrown  aside.  It  is 
still  as  good  as  it  ever  was,  but  it  is  not  good 
enough.  It  must  go  to  the  scrap  pile. 

The  man  of  the  West  is  likely  to  offend  against 
the  standards  of  propriety  in  speech.  When  he 
begins  to  explain  the  character  of  his  country,  he 
is  accused  of  inaccuracy.  His  prospectus  is  not 


1 68     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

always  confirmed  by  the  Table  of  Contents.  He 
has  acquired  the  habit  of  "  talking  large."  This 
prejudices  many  people  against  him.  They  accuse 
him  of  willful  exaggeration,  and  if  he  be  the  pro 
moter  of  some  commercial  enterprise,  they  impute 
to  him  a  mercenary  motive. 

But  he  is  in  reality  quite  sincere.  If  he  talks 
large,  it  is  only  because  he  feels  large.  His  is  a 
language  natural  to  those  who  are  engaged  in 
creative  work,  and  who  foresee  great  things.  It  is 
like  "  the  large  utterance  of  the  early  gods."  He 
does  not  feel  called  upon  to  limit  his  statements 
to  the  facts  that  are  already  apparent;  he  expects 
the  facts  to  grow  up  to  his  statements.  He  is  not 
shooting  at  a  fixed  target,  but  at  a  flying  mark ;  if 
he  is  to  hit  it,  he  must  aim  a  little  ahead. 

Another  reason  for  this  large  utterance  is  that 
in  a  new  country  the  ordinary  man  identifies  him 
self  with  his  community  in  a  way  impossible  to 
any  but  very  great  magnates  in  an  old  civilization. 
He  feels  very  much  as  did  the  kings  and  earls 
he  has  read  about.  How  proudly  on  the  Shake 
spearean  stage  a  great  noble  will  speak  of  him 
self  as  Norfolk  or  Northumberland !  It  is  as  if  his 
personality  had  been  multiplied  by  so  many  square 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         169 

miles.  He  is  no  longer  a  mere  individual,  —  he 
is  a  whole  county. 

An  American  may  have  much  the  same  sense 
of  territorial  aggrandizement  by  identifying  him 
self  with  a  promising  community  in  its  first  stage 
of  growth.  He  is  not  a  unit  lost  in  a  multitude. 
His  town  has  a  fine  name  and  a  glorious  future. 
Some  day  these  glories  may  be  divided  among 
thousands,  now  they  are  his  own.  He  is  proud  of 
the  town,  and  the  pride  is  more  satisfying  because 
he  is  it. 

I  once  camped  for  a  whole  month  in  the  city 
of  Naples  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  I  knew  it 
was  a  city,  for  a  huge  sign  announced  the  fact  to 
every  one  who  passed  by  the  beautiful,  secluded 
spot.  Unlike  some  of  the  boom  towns  of  that 
period,  Naples  had  an  inhabitant,  whom  I  had 
occasion  frequently  to  meet.  When  I  addressed 
him,  it  was  hard  for  me  to  use  his  surname,  as  I 
would  with  a  common  man.  For  to  me  he  was 
Naples.  It  would  have  seemed  appropriate  for 
him  to  speak  in  blank  verse. 

There  are  those  who  look  upon  the  Western 
delight  in  the  idea  of  bigness  as  an  evidence  of 


i  yo     THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

vulgarity  of  sentiment  and  of  the  lack  of  idealism. 
They  have  a  scorn  of  those  who  habitually  think 
of  quantity  rather  than  of  quality.  But  the  man 
of  fastidious  taste  should  not  be  allowed  to  have 
it  all  his  own  way.  One  poet  may  be  inspired  by 
"  the  murmur  of  a  hidden  brook  in  the  leafy  month 
of  June."  But  another  may  prefer  to  stand  on  the 
shore  of  the  ocean  and  feel  its  immensity.  He  is 
tremendously  impressed  by  its  size.  It  is  a  big 
thing.  But  the  ocean  is  as  poetical  as  the  brook, 
though  in  its  own  huge  way. 

There  are  some  things  wherein  quality  is  the 
first  consideration.  They  are  the  luxuries  of  life. 
But  when  we  come  to  the  prime  necessities,  the 
first  question  is  in  regard  to  the  adequacy  of  the 
supply.  When  a  sentimental  young  lady  was 
seated  at  dinner  next  to  a  great  poet,  she  waited, 
awestruck,  for  him  to  give  utterance  to  a  fine 
thought.  The  only  gem  he  vouchsafed  was,  "  How 
do  you  like  your  mutton  ?  I  like  mine  in  hunks." 
The  poet  was  a  man  of  sound  sense.  There  is  one 
law  for  poetry  and  another  for  mutton.  Poetry  is 
precious,  and  a  little  goes  a  long  way ;  we  can  get 
on  without  any  but  the  best.  But  mutton  should 
be  served  more  generously. 


AND   CHARITABLE  AIR         171 

It  is  the  glory  of  the  West  that  it  treats  what 
elsewhere  are  the  luxuries  of  the  few  as  the  ne 
cessities  of  the  many.  It  dispenses  even  "the 
i higher  education"  not  in  dainty  morsels,  but  in 
hunks. 

Old  Mrs.  Means,  in  "  The  Hoosier  School 
master,"  formulated  the  wisdom  of  the  pioneer. 
"  You  see,  this  'ere  bottom  land  was  all  Congress 
land  in  them  there  days  and  sold  for  a  dollar  and 
a  quarter,  and  I  says  to  my  old  man, '  Jack,'  says 
:I,  'do  you  git  a  plenty  while  you  're  gittin'.  Git  a 
pjenty  while  you  're  gittin','  says  I,  4  for  't  wont  be 
no  cheaper  than  't  is  now;'  and  it  haint,  and  I 
knowed  't  would  n't." 

Translate  Mrs.  Means's  shrewd  maxim  into  the 
terms  of  idealism,  and  you  have  the  characteris 
tic  contribution  of  the  West.  The  old  prudential 
maxims,  which  were  true  enough  in  a  finished 
civilization,  may  well  be  disregarded  by  those  who 
face  a  great  new  opportunity.  They  can  .well  af 
ford  to  preempt  more  territory  than  they  can  at 
present  cultivate.  When  one's  aims  are  selfish,  the 
desire  to  get  a  plenty  is  mere  greed,  but  in  the 
altruist  it  rises  into  "the  enthusiasm  for  human 
ity."  It  is  the  ambition  to  supply  the  wants  of 


172     THE  LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

men  no  longer  in  niggardly  fashion,  but  in  full 
measure. 

In  two  directions  the  expectation  of  moral 
amplitude  in  things  American  is  fulfilled,  —  in 
Education  and  in  Charity.  Here  we  feel  that  the 
people  have  been  aroused  to  the  need  of  making 
plentiful  provision,  not  only  for  immediate  neces 
sities,  but  for  future  growth.  Along  these  lines 
we  think  and  plan  nationally. 

But  there  are  some  questions  which  give  pause 
to  the  most  boastful  patriot.  Where  is  the  dis 
tinctive  American  Art  which  interprets  in  a  broad, 
fresh  way  the  genius  of  the  land,  and  where  is 
the  public  that  would  recognize  it  and  delight 
in  it  if  it  should  appear"?  Where  is  the  great 
American  Church  able  splendidly  to  organize  the 
forces  of  spiritual  freedom  as  Rome  organized 
the  principles  of  ecclesiastical  authority  ?  How  is 
the  vision  of  her  prophets  fulfilled  ? 

And  thou,  America, 

For  the  scheme's  culmination,  its  thought  and  its  reality, 

For  these  (not  for  thyself)  thou  hast  arrived. 

Thou,  too,  surroundest  all, 

Embracing,  carrying,  welcoming  all,  thou  too  by  pathway* 

broad  and  new, 
To  the  ideal  tendest. 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         173 

The  measured  faiths  of  other  lands,  the  grandeurs  of  the  past 

Are  not  for  thee,  but  grandeurs  of  thine  own, 

Deific  faiths  and  amplitudes,  absorbing,  comprehending  all. 

Where  are  these  "deific  faiths  and  amplitudes" 
that  are  worthy  of  the  land  embodied  *? 

America  presents  new  problems  for  statesman 
ship  ;  where  are  the  large-hearted,  clear-eyed  men 
who  give  themselves  to  the  task  ?  Here  and  there 
we  see  them.  In  the  crisis  of  the  nation's  life  na 
ture  came  to  the  rescue. 

For  him  her  Old- World  moulds  aside  she  threw, 
And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  true. 

That  is  the  kind  of  manhood  America  needs.  Is 
the  supply  equal  to  the  demand  ?  The  growth  of 
wealth  in  the  Republic  has  been  marvelous.  Has 
there  been  evolved  a  wisdom  equal  to  the  task  of 
justly  distributing  what  enterprise  has  created*? 
We  hear  of  American  "  Captains  of  Industry." 
How  far  have  they  realized  Carlyle's  idea  when 
he  gave  the  title  to  those  whose  success  lies  not 
in  personal  gain  but  in  ability  to  be  real  leaders 
of  men  ?  How  far  has  America  produced  great 


174    THE   LAND  OF   THE   LARGE 

captains,  able  to  bring  into  commerce  and  manu 
facture  the  soldierly  virtues  of  courage,  loyalty, 
and  witling  obedience  ? 

When  he  considers  these  things  the  just  critic 
must  say  to  the  Republic,  "  Thou  art  weighed  in 
the  balances  and  found  wanting."  But  let  him 
not  hastily  assume  that  he  is  reading  the  mystic 
handwriting  on  the  wall,  the  Mene,  mene,  tekel, 
upharsin,  that  foretells  the  fall  of  nations.  Let 
him  rather  talk  as  to  a  young  athlete  who  has  not 
come  up  to  the  mark,  "  You  have  done  much,  but 
you  have  not  yet  done  your  best !  You  are  yet 
wanting  in  some  essential  elements.  You  must 
try  again." 

The  American  idealist  recognizes  the  present 
failures,  but  it  does  not  quench  his  high  spirits. 
They  come  to  him  as  challenges.  He  takes  his 
falls  as  Adam  and  Eve  took  theirs.  After  the  first 
shock  was  over  there  was  a  healthy  reaction. 

Some  natural  tears  they  dropped,  but  wiped  them  soon; 
The  world  was  all  before  them  where  to  choose 
Their  place  of  rest,  and  Providence  their  guide. 

The  most  hopeful  sign  of  the  times  is  the  num 
ber  of  young  Americans  who  have  become  con 
scious  of  the  grave  evils  that  beset  their  country. 


AND   CHARITABLE   AIR         175 

but  who  neither  whine  nor  scold  nor  prophesy 
ill.  The  pioneer  spirit  is  strong  within  them. 
They  attack  the  abuses  of  democracy  with  a 
cheery  iconoclasm.  They  are  impelled  to  their 
work  not  merely  by  a  sense  of  duty ;  they  find 
their  fun  in  it.  It  is  with  a  sense  of  exhilaration 
that  we  watch  these  pioneers.  Their  world  is  all 
before  them.  We  are  anxious  to  see  what  they 
will  make  of  it. 


A  COMMUNITY   OF  HUMORISTS 


HUMOR  is  not  usually  looked  upon  as  a 
civic  virtue.  It  is  for  the  most  part  confined 
to  a  modest  sphere  of  usefulness,  and  is  accepted  as 
an  alleviation  to  the  lot  of  the  private  man.  He 
learns  to  find  pleasure  in  his  small  misadventures 
and  to  smile  amiably  at  his  discomfitures.  The 
most  ancient  pleasantries  have  almost  always  an 
element  of  domesticity.  They  form  the  silver 
lining  to  the  clouds  that  sometimes  gather  over 
the  most  peaceful  homes.  What  comfort  an 
ancient  Hebrew  must  have  taken  in  the  text 
from  Ecclesiasticus  :  "As  climbing  up  a  sandy 
way  is  to  the  feet  of  the  aged,  so  is  a  wife  full  of 
words  to  a  quiet  man."  The  quiet  man  would 
murmur  to  himself,  "  How  true  !  "  He  would 
seize  the  simile  as  a  dog  snatches  a  bone,  and 
would  carry  it  off  to  enjoy  it  by  himself. 

But  it  would  never  occur  to  him  to  treat  the 
large  affairs  of  the  community  in  this  fashion. 
Here  everything  seems  too  dignified  to  allow  of 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     177 

pleasant  conceits.  The  quiet  man  could  not  treat 
the  prolixity  of  his  social  superiors  as  he  could 
the  too  long  drawn  out  wisdom  of  his  wife.  He 
must  take  it,  as  he  would  take  the  invariable  laws  of 
nature,  with  unsmiling  acquiescence.  Lord  Bacon 
in  his  list  of  works  that  ought  to  be  undertaken 
declared  the  need  of  one  to  be  entitled  "  Sober 
Satire  ;  or  the  Insides  of  Things."  Such  sober 
satire  might  express  the  moods  of  a  philosophical 
statesman,  who  could  contrast  the  inside  of  great 
affairs  with  the  outside.  It  implies  a  certain  famil 
iarity  with  the  institutions  of  society  which  the 
common  man  does  not  possess. 

Now  and  then,  however,  there  is  a  reversal  of 
the  usual  relation.  The  community  is  of  such  a 
nature  that  each  member  can  see  through  it  and  all 
around  it.  The  ordinary  citizen  becomes  a  philo 
sopher  indulging  habitually  in  sober  satire.  He 
knows  that  things  are  not  as  they  seem,  and  is 
pleased  at  the  discovery.  In  such  a  case  humor 
envelops  everything  and  becomes  the  last  word 
of  sociological  wisdom. 

So  it  was  in  a  community  which  I  fondly  re 
member.  It  was  not  much  to  look  at,  this  brand- 
new  Nevada  mining  town.  The  main  street 


1 78     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

swaggered  up  the  gulch  in  a  devil-may-care  fash 
ion,  as  if  saying  to  the  teamsters,  "  You  may  take 
me  or  leave  me."  To  the  north  it  pointed  to  an 
alkali  flat,  and  to  the  south  to  a  dusty  old  moun 
tain,  which  was  immensely  richer  than  it  seemed. 
On  the  mountain  side  were  hoisting  works  and 
hundreds  of  prospect  holes  which  menaced  the 
lives  of  the  unwary.  In  the  gulch  were  smelters 
which  belched  forth  divers  kinds  of  fumes.  To 
the  stranger  they  seemed  to  threaten  wholesale 
asphyxiation,  but  to  the  citizen  they  gave  the 
place  the  character  of  a  health  resort.  An  analy 
sis  of  the  air  showed  that  it  contained  more  chem 
icals  than  were  to  be  found  in  the  most  famous 
mineral  springs.  Certain  it  was  that  there  were 
enough  to  kill  off  all  germs  of  contagious  diseases. 
The  community  felt  the  need  of  no  further  hy 
gienic  precautions,  and  put  its  trust  in  its  daily 
fumigations.  No  green  thing  was  in  sight,  not  so 
much  as  a  grass  blade,  for  the  fumes  were  not  only 
germicides,  but  also  herbicides.  On  the  main  street 
were  saloons  and  gambling  houses,  in  close  prox 
imity  to  two  or  three  struggling  churches.  There 
were  two  daily  newspapers,  each  of  which  kept 
us  informed  of  the  other's  manifold  iniquities.  A 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     179 

narrow-gauge  railroad  had  its  terminus  at  the  foot 
of  the  gulch.  Once  a  day  a  mixed  train  would 
depart  for  the  world  that  lay  beyond  the  alkali 
flat.  Some  of  the  passengers  would  be  "going 
below,"  which  meant  nothing  worse  than  a  trip 
to  California ;  others  were  promoters  going  East 
on  missions  of  mercy  to  benighted  capitalists. 
The  promoter  was  our  nearest  approach  to  a  pro 
fessional  philanthropist.  As  for  the  rest,  the  chief 
impression  was  of  dust.  It  would  roll  in  great 
billows  down  the  gulch;  it  seemed  as  if  the 
mountains  had  been  pulverized.  Then  the  wind 
would  change  and  the  dust  billows  would  roll 
back.  No  matter  how  long  it  blew,  there  was 
always  more  where  it  came  from. 

I  cannot  explain  to  an  unsympathetic  reader 
why  it  was  that  we  found  life  in  our  dusty  little 
metropolis  so  charming,  and  why  it  was  that  we 
felt  such  pity  for  those  who  had  never  experienced 
the  delights  of  our  environment.  Nor  can  I 
justify  to  such  a  reader  the  impulse  which  led 
a  woman  whose  husband  had  died  far  away  in 
New  England  to  bring  his  body  back  to  be  laid 
to  rest  in  the  bare  little  cemetery  amid  the  sage 
brush. 


i8o     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

"  It 's  not  such  a  homelike  country  as  the  other," 
I  ventured. 

"No,"  she  answered,  "it  isn't,  but  he  liked  it." 

And  so  did  we  all;  and  the  liking  was  not  the 
less  real  because  it  was  an  acquired  taste.  There 
was  nothing  in  it  akin  to  serious  public  spirit. 
It  was  a  whimsical  liking,  like  that  of  Touch 
stone  for  Audrey,  —  "  An  ill-favoured  thing,  sir, 
but  mine  own ;  a  poor  humour  of  mine,  sir,  to 
take  that  that  no  man  else  will." 

When  several  thousand  people,  set  down  in 
the  midst  of  a  howling  wilderness,  tacitly  agree 
to  consider  it  as  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  they  can 
do  much.  It  pleases  the  ephemeral  community 
to  make  believe  that  it  is  permanent.  The  camp 
organizes  itself  into  a  city,  with  all  the  offices  and 
dignities  appertaining  thereto.  Civilization  is 
extemporized  like  a  game  of  dumb  crambo.  It 
amuses  the  citizens  to  see  their  beloved  city  going 
about  in  institutions  several  sizes  too  large  for  it. 
Nothing  is  taken  literally.  Humor  is  accepted 
not  as  a  private  possession,  but  as  a  public  trust, 
and  cultivated  in  a  spirit  of  generous  coopera 
tion. 

In  the  town  were  men  whose  education  and 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     181 

experience  had  been  in  the  great  world.  There 
were  mine  superintendents  who  a  little  while 
ago  might  have  been  in  Germany  or  Cornwall ; 
there  were  assayers  and  engineers  fresh  from  the 
great  technical  schools,  and  "experts"  full  of 
geological  lore.  The  mines  were  as  rich  in  liti 
gation  as  in  silver,  and  there  were  lawyers  great 
and  small. 

But  all  were  dominated  by  one  typical  charac 
ter  who  was  accepted  as  the  oracle  of  the  land,  — 
"  The  Honest  Miner."  To  him  saloons  were  dedi 
cated  with  alluring  titles,  such  as  "  The  Honest 
Miner's  Delight"  and  "The  Honest  Miner's 
Rest."  At  the  end  of  the  gulch  was  "  The  Honest 
Miner's  Last  Chance,"  —  one  which  he  seldom 
missed.  The  newspapers  and  political  orators 
appealed  to  his  untutored  judgments  as  the  last 
word  of  political  wisdom.  He  occupied  the  posi 
tion  which  elsewhere  is  held  by  the  "  Sturdy  Yeo 
man  "  or  the  "  Solid  Business  Man." 

The  Honest  Miner  of  the  Far  West  is  one  of 
those  typical  Americans  who  are  builders  of  com 
monwealths.  His  impress  is  upon  the  western 
half  of  our  continent.  He  is  a  nomad,  the  last  of 
a  long  line  of  adventurers  to  whom  the  delight 


1 82     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

of  the  new  world  is  in  its  newness.  Sometimes1 
his  work  is  permanent,  but  he  never  is  quite 
sure.  His  habitual  mood  is  one  of  sober  satire. 

I  know  nothing  more  pleasant  than  to  sit  with 
an  old-timer  who  has  spent  years  in  prospecting 
for  silver  and  gold,  and  listen  to  his  reminiscences. 
Here  is  a  philosopher  indeed,  one  with  an  historic 
perspective.  He  has  the  experience  of  the  Wan 
dering  Jew,  without  his  world-weariness.  He  has 
seen  the  rise  and  fall  of  cities  and  the  successive 
dynasties  of  mining  kings.  His  life  has  been  a 
mingling  of  society  and  solitude.  With  his  pack 
upon  his  back  he  has  wandered  into  desert  places 
where  no  man  had  been  since  the  making  of 
the  world,  —  at  least,  no  man  with  an  eye  to  the 
main  chance.  A  few  weeks  later  the  lonely  canon 
has  become  populated  with  eager  fortune-seekers. 
The  camp  becomes  a  city  which  to  the  eyes  of 
the  Honest  Miner  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  the 
world.  A  year  later  he  revisits  the  scene,  and 
it  is  as  Tadmor  in  the  Wilderness.  He  pauses  to 
refresh  his  mind  with  ancient  history,  and  then 
passes  on  to  join  in  a  new  "excitement."  He 
measures  time  by  these  excitements  as  the  Greeks 
measured  it  by  Olympiads. 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     183 

He  loves  to  tell  of  the  ups  and  downs  of  his 
own  fortune.  There  is  no  bitterness  in  his  mem 
ory  of  his  failures.  They  relieve  the  record  from 
the  monotony  that  belongs  to  assured  success.  His 
successes  are  not  less  gratifying  because,  like  all 
things  earthly,  they  have  had  a  speedy  ending.  A 
dozen  times  he  has  "  struck  it  rich."  He  has  thrown 
away  his  pick  and  shovel  and  gone  below  to  bask 
in  the  smiles  of  fortune.  He  has  indulged  in 
vague  dreams  of  going  to  Europe,  of  looking  up 
his  family  tree,  and  of  cultivating  grammar  and 
other  fine  arts.  Fortune  continued  to  smile,  but 
after  a  while  her  smile  became  sardonic,  and  with 
a  wink  she  said,  "  Time  's  up  !  "  Then  the  Hon 
est  Miner  would  take  up  his  pick  and  shovel  and 
return  to  his  work,  neither  a  sadder  nor  a  wiser 
man,  —  in  fact,  exactly  the  same  kind  of  man 
he  was  before.  That  Experience  is  a  teacher  is  a 
pedantic  theory  which  he  rejects  with  scorn.  Ex 
perience  is  not  a  schoolmaster,  Experience  is  a 
chum  who  likes  to  play  practical  jokes  upon 
him.  Just  now  he  has  given  him  a  tumble  and 
got  the  laugh  on  him.  But  just  wait  awhile  ! 
And  he  chuckles  to  himself  as  he  thinks  how  he 
will  outwit  Experience. 


1 84    A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

All  the  traditions  of  the  mining  country  con 
firm  him  in  his  point  of  view:  Listen  to  what 
Experience  says,  and  then  do  just  the  opposite. 
It  is  the  unexpected  that  happens.  The  richest 
diggings  bear  the  most  lugubrious  names.  The 
Montanian  delights  to  tell  of  the  riches  taken  out 
of  Last  Chance  Gulch.  The  Arizonian  for  years 
boasted  of  the  gayety  of  Tombstone  and  the 
amazing  prosperity  of  the  Total  Wreck  Mine. 

Certain  physiologists  are  now  telling  us  that 
the  poetic  praise  of  wine  is  based  upon  a  mistake. 
Alcohol,  they  say,  is  not  a  stimulant,  but  a  de 
pressant.  It  does  not  stimulate  the  imagination 
so  much  as  it  depresses  the  critical  faculty  so 
that  dullness  may  easily  pass  for  wit.  An  idea  will 
occur  to  a  sober  man  as  being  rather  bright,  but 
before  he  has  time  to  express  it  he  sees  that  it  is  not 
so.  Under  the  inhibition  of  good  sense  he  holds 
his  tongue  and  saves  his  reputation.  But  in  a  con 
vivial  company  the  inhibition  is  removed.  Every 
body  says  whatever  is  uppermost  in  his  mind. 
The  mice  play,  not  because  they  are  more  lively 
than  before,  but  only  because  the  cat  is  away. 

On  first  hearing  this  theory,  it  seemed  to  me 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     185 

that  it  was  the  most  powerful  temperance  argu 
ment  which  could  be  formulated.  But  I  am  not 
sure  but  that  it  leaves  the  matter  very  much 
where  it  found  it.  After  all,  the  man  who  is  op 
pressed  by  the  dullness  of  his  ordinary  condition 
would  enjoy  feeling  brilliant,  even  if  he  were  not 
really  so. 

In  trying  to  recall  any  specific  instances  of  wit 
and  humor  in  my  Nevada  town,  I  am  compelled 
to  fall  back  on  the  theory  of  the  removal  of  in 
hibition.  Life  was  not  more  amusing  there  than 
elsewhere,  —  it  only  seemed  so.  There  were  no 
"  best  people  "  whose  critical  judgments  inhibited 
the  self-expression  of  less  favored  classes.  Every 
one  feeling  at  liberty  to  be  himself  and  to  express 
his  own  opinion,  unfailing  variety  was  assured. 
Society,  being  composed  of  all  sorts  and  condi 
tions  of  men,  was  in  a  state  of  perpetual  efferves 
cence.  A  very  ordinary  man,  who  elsewhere  might 
have  passed  unnoticed  in  a  life  of  drudgery,  be 
came  a  notable  character. 

There,  for  example,  was  Old  Multitude,  so 
called  from  the  many  oxen  attached  to  the  huge 
wagons  he  convoyed  to  the  distant  mines.  He 
was  a  bull- whacker  of  the  old  school.  His  sur- 


1 86     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

name  had  long  been  lost  in  the  abyss  of  time. 
Old  Multitude  was  not  looked  upon  as  a  mere 
individual.  The  public  had  adopted  him,  and  he 
had  become  an  institution. 

When  he  was  about  to  depart,  a  crowd  would 
gather  on  the  main  street,  as  the  inhabitants  of  a 
little  seaport  town  gather  to  watch  the  departure 
of  a  ship.  Old  Multitude  bore  his  honors  meekly, 
but  he  was  conscious  that  he  was  the  chief  actor 
in  an  important  social  function.  There  was  no 
thing  ill-advised  in  his  actions,  and  his  words  were 
fitly  chosen  as  he  walked  down  the  line,  address 
ing  to  each  beast  of  his  multitudinous  team  the 
appropriate  malediction.  His  wide  vocabulary  on 
such  occasions  contrasted  strangely  with  his  usual 
taciturnity.  The  words  taken  by  themselves  were 
blood-curdling  enough,  but  as  they  rose  and  fell 
in  mighty  undulations  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  in 
toning  a  liturgy. 

And  there  was  Old  Tansy,  a  bit  of  wreckage 
from  the  times  of  '49.  There  was  a  tradition  that 
Tansy  had  seen  better  days ;  at  least,  it  was  hard 
to  imagine  how  he  could  have  seen  worse.  He 
lived  without  visible  means  of  support,  and  yet  he 
was  not  submerged.  It  pleased  the  community 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     187 

to  accept  Tansy  as  a  character  worth  knowing  in 
spite  of  his  fallen  fortunes.  His  obvious  failings 
were  always  clothed  in  soft  euphemisms.  No  one 
could  say  that  he  had  ever  seen  him  drunk,  and 
on  the  other  hand  no  one  would  be  so  rash  as  to 
assert  that  he  had  ever  seen  him  sober.  In  the 
border  land  between  moderate  drinking  and  ine 
briety,  Tansy  dwelt  in  peace. 

What  most  endeared  Tansy -to  his  fellows  was 
his  mild  religiosity,  which  manifested  itself  in 
persistent  church-going.  He  was  no  fair-weather 
Christian.  There  was  no  occasion  when  he  would 
not  desert  his  favorite  saloon  to  take  his  accus 
tomed  place  in  the  back  pew  of  the  Presbyterian 
church.  Only  once  did  Tansy  express  an  opinion 
in  regard  to  the  services  which  he  so  assiduously 
attended.  A  minister  passing  through  the  town 
preached  a  lurid  sermon  on  the  future  punish 
ment  of  the  wicked.  He  spared  no  materialistic 
imagery  to  make  his  remarks  effective.  At  the 
close  of  the  service  Tansy,  instead  of  going  out,  as 
was  his  custom,  went  forward  and,  grasping  the 
minister's  hands,  said  in  a  tone  of  quiet  satisfac 
tion,  "  Parson,  it  done  me  good." 

Just  what  the  nature  of  the  good  was  he  did 


1 88     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

not  indicate.  I  suppose  that  there  was  something 
in  the  unction  of  the  preacher  that  recalled  mem 
ories  of"  the  past. 

There  was  one  person  whom  I  always  recall 
with  peculiar  "pleasure.  To  see  him  coming  over 
the  divide  in  a  cloud  of  dust  was  to  see  one  of 
the  typical  forms  of  creation.  He  was  known,  on 
account  of  the  huge  pair  of  goggles  which  he 
wore,  as  "  Four-Eyed  Nick."  He  dwelt  in  a  cabin 
in  the  most  desolate  part  of  the  mountain,  and  he 
fitted  his  environment  perfectly.  He  seemed  as 
natural  a  product  of  the  soil  as  the  sage  brush,  for 
like  it  he  had  learned  to  exist  where  there  was 
very  little  water. 

Great  was  the  joy  in  the  community  when  one 
day  Four-Eyed  Nick  announced  that  he  had  struck 
pay  ore  and  that  he  was  about  to  celebrate  his 
good  fortune  by  getting  married.  Every  one  was 
intensely  interested.  The  newspapers  made  an  es 
pecial  feature  of  the  approaching  marriage  in  high 
life.  Nick  was  dazed  by  the  sudden  glare  of  pub 
licity.  Who  should  be  invited  ?  His  generous 
heart  rebelled  against  any  discrimination,  and  he 
solved  his  problem  by  saying,  "Come  one!  Come 
all ! "  He  engaged  every  vehicle  in  the  town  to 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     189 

be  at  the  disposal  of  such  of  his  fellow  citizens 
as  would  honor  him  with  their  presence  at  his 
nuptials. 

It  would  have  delighted  the  heart  of  Chaucer 
to  have  seen  the  procession  of  wedding  guests 
wending  their  way  over  the  ten  miles  of  abomi 
nable  mountain  road  to  Nick's  cabin.  Not  on  the 
road  to  Canterbury  was  there  more  variety  or 
more  hearty  good  fellowship.  Nick  had  invited 
the  town,  and  the  town  was  bent  on  showing  its 
appreciation  of  the  compliment.  The  mayor  and 
members  of  the  city  council,  the  lawyers,  editors, 
doctors,  clergymen,  gamblers,  mining  experts, 
saloon-keepers,  and  honest  miners  all  joined 
heartily  in  doing  honor  to  one  whom  they,  for 
the  moment,  agreed  to  consider  their  most  dis 
tinguished  fellow  citizen. 

No  one  could  remain  long  in  assured  ob 
scurity.  It  pleased  the  community  to  turn  its 
search-light  now  upon  one  member  and  now 
upon  another,  and  give  him  a  brief  experience 
of  living  in  the  public  eye.  Greatness  of  one 
sort  or  another  was  sure  to  be  thrust  upon  one 
in  the  course  of  the  year.  The  choicest  spirits 
of  the  town  were  always  collaborating  in  some 


190     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

work  of  high-grade  fiction,  and  were  on  the 
lookout  for  interesting  material.  It  would  have 
been  churlish  for  any  one  when  his  turn  came 
to  have  refused  to  be  a  notability. 

An  English  writer  laments  the  fact  that  the 
schools  send  out  thousands  of  persons  whose 
imaginations  have  been  stifled  by  the  too  prosaic 
discipline  which  they  have  undergone.  "  Why," 
he  says,  "  is  it  that  ninety-nine  persons  out  of  a 
hundred  lose  this  faculty  in  the  earliest  period  of 
their  childhood  *?  It  is  simply  because  their  bring 
ing  up  has  consisted  in  the  persistent  inoculation 
with  the  material  facts  of  life,  and  the  correspond 
ingly  persistent  elimination  of  all  imaginative 
ideas." 

He  blames  parents  who  give  their  children 
mechanical  toys,  especially  if  they  are  well  made. 
Even  a  doll  should  not  have  too  much  verisim 
ilitude.  "  It  would  be  better  to  place  a  bundle 
of  rags  in  the  arms  of  a  little  girl,  and  tell  her  to 
imagine  it  to  be  a  baby.  She  would,  if  left  to 
herself  with  no  other  resource  than  her  own  fancy 
learn  to  exercise  all  her  dormant  powers  of  im 
agination  and  originality." 

That  kind  of  education  the  Honest  Miner  has 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     191 

carried  into  mature  life.  He  is  full  of  imagina 
tive  ideas.  The  barest  shanty  is  glorified  in  his 
eyes  if  it  bears  the  sign  "  Palace  Hotel  "  or  "  Del- 
monico's."  If  he  cannot  have  the  thing,  he  takes 
satisfaction  in  the  name.  Above  all  else,  he  craves 
variety. 

The  inhabitants  of  Gold  Hill  used  to  relate 
with  pleasure  the  exploits  of  Sandy  Bowers. 
When  he  struck  an  incredibly  rich  pocket  in  the 
mountain,  Sandy  built  for  himself  a  huge  and 
expensive  mansion  in  Washoe  Valley.  He  im 
ported  all  kinds  of  trees  from  foreign  lands,  none 
of  which  would  grow.  He  filled  his  house  with 
pianos,  and  when  some  one  suggested  sheet  mu 
sic  he  telegraphed  to  New  York :  "  Send  me 
some  sheet  music,  one  of  every  kind." 

It  was  the  desire  for  one  of  every  kind  which 
induced  our  community,  when  it  put  off  the 
habits  of  a  "  camp  "  and  became  a  "  city,"  to  lift 
into  temporary  prominence  an  elderly  farmer 
from  Pennsylvania  who  had  drifted  into  Nevada 
without  changing  any  of  his  ways.  He  came 
from  York  County,  where  he  would  have  gone  on 
his  way  unnoticed,  for  there  were  so  many  like 
him.  But  in  the  silver  country  he  was  different 


192     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

from  the  common  run  of  fortune-seekers,  there 
fore  he  was  made  much  of.  Some  local  Diogenes 
turned  his  lantern  upon  him  and  discovered  that 
he  was  an  honest  man,  honest  in  a  plodding, 
Pennsylvania  Dutch  fashion.  "  Honest  John " 
became  a  man  of  note.  Then  some  one  suggested 
that  we  had  "  in  our  midst  a  grand  old  man." 
That  was  enough  to  make  the  political  fortune 
of  the  honest  man.  He  was  elected  to  a  position 
of  power  in  the  new  city  government,  for  every 
one  was  anxious  to  see  what  our  "grand  old 
man  "  would  do. 

He  proved  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of  the  politi 
cians.  He  introduced  a  reign  of  rigid  economy 
which  made  the  local  statesmen  despair  of  the 
Republic.  It  was  decided  that  the  city  had  had 
too  much  of  a  good  thing.  The  Grand  Old 
Man  should  be  deposed,  —  he  should  not  be 
mayor,  nor  member  of  the  council,  nor  any  such 
thing. 

But  the  municipal  charter  had  been  conceived 
in  that  generous  fashion  which  is  proper  to  a  state 
where  there  are  offices  in  excess  of  the  needs  of  the 
population.  The  Grand  Old  Man  discovered  that 
there  was  one  office  which  had  been  overlooked 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     193 

by  the  astute  politicians  :  that  of  the  Superinten 
dent  of  Streets  and  Sidewalks.  The  streets  had 
not  been  clearly  differentiated  from  the  surround 
ing  desert,  and,  as  for  sidewalks,  the  citizens  had 
been  accustomed  to  cut  across  the  country  wher 
ever  it  pleased  them.  The  highways  having  been 
left  to  the  kindly  influence  of  Nature,  it  never 
occurred  to  any  one  that  they  should  be  officially 
superintended.  The  Grand  Old  Man  cast  a  ballot 
for  himself  as  Superintendent  of  Streets  and  Side 
walks,  and  when  the  returns  were  in,  it  was  found 
that  his  name  led  all  the  rest.  He  was  declared 
elected  by  a  majority  of  one. 

Then  he  began  to  magnify  his  office.  He 
brought  forth  a  plan  of  the  city  which  had  here 
tofore  been  a  dead  letter.  He  discovered  streets 
where  the  wildest  imagination  had  not  supposed 
streets  to  be  possible.  Prominent  citizens  were 
arrested  for  obstructing  mythical  sidewalks.  He 
was  encouraged  to  stretch  his  prerogatives  to  the 
utmost,  for  every  one  was  curious  to  see  how  far 
they  would  go.  For  six  months  he  ruled  by  right 
of  eminent  domain.  Leading  lawyers  gave  it  as 
their  opinion  that  all  rights  not  expressly  reserved 
by  the  Federal  and  State  governments  were  vested 


i94     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

in  the  Grand  Old  Man.  The  Methodist  minister, 
who  was  inclined  to  sensationalism,  preached  a 
sermon  from  the  text  in  Nehemiah  vi.  6:  "It  is 
reported  among  the  heathen,  and  Gashmu  saith  it." 
"Who  this  Gashmu  was,"  said  the  preacher,  in  be 
ginning  his  discourse,  "  we  do  not  know,  but  from 
the  importance  attributed  to  his  remarks  we  may 
fairly  assume  that  he  was  the  Superintendent  of 
Streets  and  Sidewalks  in  Jerusalem." 

Lowell  describes  the  rough  humor  of  the  fron 
tier,  with  the  free  and  easy  manners  which  charac 
terize 

this  brown-fisted  rough,  this  shirt-sleeved  Cid, 
This  back-woods  Charlemagne  of  empires  new, 
Whose  blundering  heel  instinctively  finds  out 
The  goutier  foot  of  speechless  dignities, 
Who,  meeting  Cassar's  self,  would  slap  his  back, 
Call  him  '  Old  Horse '   and  challenge  to  a  drink. 

He  had  in  mind  the  backwoodsmen  whom 
sturdy  apostles  like  Peter  Cartwright  labored 
with  to  such  good  purpose.  But  the  Honest 
Miner,  though  a  pioneer,  is  not  a  backwoodsman. 
His  humor  is  of  a  different  quality.  He  would 
not  think  of  slapping  Csesar  on  the  back  and 
calling  him  "Old  Horse."  It  would  seem  more 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     195 

amusing  to  him  to  address  some  one  who  might 
properly  be  called  "  Old  Horse  "  with  titles  of 
honor. 

"  Truthful  James  "  delights  in  euphemism.  He 
does  not  object  to  calling  a  spade  a  spade,  but  he 
refuses  to  do  so  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  offense. 

Which  it  is  not  my  style 

To  produce  needless  pain 
By  statements  that  rile 

Or  that  go  'gin  the  grain. 

He  is  no  "  brown-fisted  rough  "  who  delights  in 
swagger.  There  is  roughness  enough  all  about 
him,  and  it  pleases  him  to  cultivate  the  ameni 
ties.  His  gentlemanliness  is  often  carried  to  ex 
cess. 

The  most  characteristic  humor  of  the  Honest 
Miner  consists,  not  in  grotesque  exaggeration,  but 
in  delicate  understatement.  What  can  be  more 
considerate  than  the  notice  posted  by  the  side 
of  an  open  shaft :  "  Gentlemen  will  please  not 
fall  down  this  shaft,  for  there  are  men  at  work 
below." 

A  Nevada  minister  once  described  to  me  the 
action  of  a  brother  minister  in  the  early  days.  The 
minister  went  to  a  certain  town  where  he  offended 


196     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

the  lawless  element,  and  was  threatened  with 
physical  violence  if  he  persisted  in  his  intention 
of  preaching.  My  friend  described  the  method 
by  which  the  liberty  of  prophesying  was  asserted. 
"  He  went  into  the  pulpit,  laid  his  revolver  on 
the  Bible  —  and  then  he  preached  extempore'' 

The  manner  of  narration  savored  of  the  soil. 
The  Honest  Miner  under  such  circumstances 
would  subordinate  everything  to  emphasis  on  the 
correct  homiletical  method.  No  matter  how  able 
the  minister  might  be,  it  was  evident  that  if  he 
were  closely  confined  to  his  notes,  his  delivery 
could  not  be  effective. 

A  good  woman  described  the  way  in  which  her 
minister,  a  young  man  fresh  from  the  theological 
school,  made  one  of  his  first  parish  calls.  He 
found  his  parishioner,  who  had  been  extolled  as 
one  of  the  pillars  of  the  church,  in  a  state  of  in 
toxication,  and  he  was  chased  out  of  the  house 
and  some  distance  down  the  street. 

44  We  were  sorry  it  happened,  for  it  gave  him 
an  unpleasant  impression  of  the  congregation. 
You  know  Mr. met  with  several  rebuffs." 

The  unconventional  episode  was  related  with 
all  the  prim  propriety  of 4t  Cranford." 


A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS     197 

The  perfect  democracy  of  a  mining  camp  de 
velops  a  certain  naive  truth-telling,  which  has 
all  the  unexpectedness  which  belongs  to  the 
observations  of  a  boy.  There  is  no  attempt  to 
reduce  everything  to  uniformity,  or  to  prove  any 
particular  thesis.  The  gossip  of  a  conventional 
village  where  people  know  each  other  too  well 
is  apt  to  be  malicious.  A  creditable  action  is 
narrated,  and  then  comes  the  inevitable  "but." 
The  subject  of  conversation  falls  in  the  estima 
tion  of  the  hearers  with  a  sudden  thud. 

The  Honest  Miner  does  not  attempt  to  pass 
final  judgment  or  to  arrange  his  fellow  men  ac 
cording  to  any  sort  of  classification.  He  speaks 
of  them  as  he  sees  them,  and  so  virtues  and  fail 
ings  jostle  one  another  and  take  no  offense.  The 
result  is  a  moral  inconsequence  which  has  all 
the  effect  of  studied  wit.  This  is  what  delights  us 
in  the  characterization  of  Thompson  of  Angel's: 

Frequently  drunk   was   Thompson,   but   always    polite  to   the 
stranger. 

As  we  read  the  line  we  smile,  not  so  much  at 
Thompson  as  at  the  society  of  which  he  was  a 
part.  We  see  behind  him  the  sympathetic  com 
pany  at  Angel's.  Here  was  a  public  with  whose 


198     A  COMMUNITY  OF  HUMORISTS 

temper  he  was  familiar.  He  could  trust  himself 
to  the  judgment  of  his  peers.  No  misdemeanor 
would  blind  them  to  such  virtues  as  he  actually 
possessed.  He  could  appeal  to  them  with  per 
fect  confidence. 

When  you  shall  these  unlucky  deeds  relate, 
Speak  of  me  as  I  am;  nothing  extenuate, 
Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice. 

The  Western  mining  camp  is  not  primarily 
an  educational  institution,  yet  it  has  served  a 
most  important  function  in  the  making  of  Amer 
icans.  The  young  man  is  fortunate  who  on  leav 
ing  college  can  take  a  post-graduate  course  in 
a  community  where  he  can  study  sociology  at 
first  hand.  He  will  learn  many  things,  especially 
that  human  nature  is  not  so  simple  as  it  seems, 
but  that  it  has  many  "  dips,  spurs,  and  angles." 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 


ALL  the  world  loves  a  lover,"  but  all  the 
world  does  not  love  a  saint.  Our  hearts 
do  not  leap  up  when  we  behold  a  halo  on  the  title- 
page,  and  so  the  lives  of  the  heroes  of  the  Church 
are  frequently  neglected.  When  the  saint  has 
been  duly  canonized,  that  is  generally  the  end  of 
him  in  popular  esteem.  But  sometimes  the  eccle 
siastical  and  secular  judgments  coincide  and  the 
saint  is  invested  with  human  interest. 

So  it  has  been  with  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  — 
given  the  highest  honors  in  his  church,  he  has 
captivated  the  imagination  of  the  world.  Protest 
ants  vie  with  Catholics  in  doing  him  honor.  At 
no  time  has  his  name  been  more  familiar  or  his 
legend  more  often  repeated  than  in  our  own 
day.  He  has  been  recanonized. 

This  renewal  of  interest  in  the  Franciscan  le 
gend  is  all  the  more  interesting  because  it  carries 
us  into  a  region  so  remote  from  that  in  which  we 
habitually  dwell.  * 


200        A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

"  Now  it  came  to  pass  that  as  Francis,  the  ser 
vant  of  the  Lord,  was  singing  the  praises  of  the 
Lord  with  joy  and  gladness,  certain  robbers  fell 
upon  him  and  fiercely  questioned  him  who  he  was. 
And  he  answered,  '  I  am  the  herald  of  the  King 
of  Heaven.'  And  the  robbers  fell  upon  him  with 
blows  and  cast  him  into  a  ditch,  saying,  6  Lie  there, 
thou  herald  of  nothing ! '  When  they  had  de 
parted  Francis  arose  and  went  through  the  for 
est,  singing  with  a  loud  voice  the  praises  of  the 
Creator." 

These  words  take  us  into  another  world  than 
ours.  To  enter  that  world  we  must  not  only  lay 
aside  our  easily  besetting  sins,  but  our  easily  be 
setting  virtues  as  well.  We  must  cast  aside  all 
the  prudential  virtues,  we  must  rid  our  minds  of 
all  prejudice  in  favor  of  scientific  charity  and  ra 
tionalistic  schemes  of  philanthropy,  and  we  must 
disclaim  personal  responsibility  for  the  progress 
of  modern  civilization.  With  such  impedimenta 
the  pilgrim  of  thought  might  possibly  get  as  far 
back  as  the  sixteenth  century,  but  it  would  be 
impossible  for  him  to  penetrate  into  the  thirteenth. 
He  who  would  do  so  must  first  drink  deep  of 
Lethe.  Jie  must  put  out  of  mind  those  persons 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED        201 

and  events  which  have  been  the  distinctive  in 
fluences  of  the  modern  world.  He  must  forget 
Luther,  and  wash  his  soul  clean  of  every  trace 
of  Calvin ;  every  echo  of  the  raillery  of  Voltaire 
must  have  died  away,  and  his  mind  must  have 
been  kept  unspotted  from  the  world  of  Newton 
and  of  Darwin. 

Above  all,  if  he  would  enter  into  the  social 
dreams  of  the  thirteenth  century,  he  must  forget 
that  he  ever  heard  of  such  a  science  as  political 
economy.  He  must  renounce  the  old  Adam  and 
all  his  works,  —  I  mean  Adam  Smith. 

But  on  the  other  side  of  Lethe  there  are  pure 
fountains,  and  dark  forests  where  robbers  lurk, 
and  where  saints  are  singing  the  high  praises  of 
God,  and  beyond  are  the  "  regions  dim  of  rap 
ture  "  where  they  are  lost  from  the  eyes  of  their 
disciples. 

And  it  may  not  be  in  vain  to  turn  aside  from 
the  consideration  of  the  engrossing  questions  of 
our  day,  to  enter  into  that  dim  world  and  look 
out  upon  it  through  the  eyes  of  its  truest  saints. 
They  were  eyes  blind  to  many  things  we  see 
clearly,  but  they  saw  some  things  which  we  do 
not  always  see ;  at  any  rate  they  were  eyes  — 


202        A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

Beyond  my  knowing  of  them  beautiful, 
Beyond  all  knowing  of  them  wonderful, 
Beautiful  in  the  light  of  holiness. 

So  Francis  of  Assisi  has  an  especial  interest  for 
every  student  of  Christianity  and  for  every  stu 
dent  of  ethics.  For  the  student  of  Christianity  he 
stands  as  a  man  who,  while  neither  a  theologian 
nor  a  reformer,  and  having  no  place  among  the 
intellectual  leaders  of  mankind,  has  an  undis 
puted  spiritual  leadership.  His  place  is  that  of 
the  little  child  whom  Jesus  placed  in  the  midst 
and  of  whom  he  said,  "  Of  such  is  the  kingdom 
of  Heaven." 

For  the  student  of  ethics  St.  Francis  is  of  inter 
est  because,  while  he  had  an  invincible  ignorance 
of  scientific  ethics,  yet  the  real  emphasis  of  his 
life  and  teaching  was  on  the  finest  kind  of  ethical 
idealism.  We  are  reminded  of  Shakespeare's 
lines :  — 

Love  is  too  young  to  know  what  conscience  is, 
Yet  who  knows  not  that  conscience  is  born  of  love. 

There  are  some  characters,  and  St.  Francis  is 
among  them,  who  belong  so  completely  to  their 
own  age  that  we  cannot  take  them  out  of  their 
environment.  The  beauty  of  their  lives  is  like 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED        203 

that  of  some  shy  wild  flower  which  will  not  bear 
transplanting.  If  we  would  enjoy  it  we  must  go 
where  it  grows.  To  appreciate  these  characters  we 
need  not  critical  knowledge,  but  imaginative  sym 
pathy. 

There  is  an  old  Irish  legend  of  a  young  hero 
who  sailed  to  a  far  country  and  married  a  beauti 
ful  princess.  Living  there  he  enjoyed  perpetual 
youth,  and  three  centuries  passed  away  as  if  they 
had  been  but  three  years.  Then  came  a  longing 
to  return  to  his  own  native  land.  After  much 
entreating  his  fair  wife  allowed  him  to  return  on 
one  condition,  and  that  was  that  he  should  not 
dismount  from  the  white  steed  she  gave  him. 
The  prince  came  back,  but  riding  in  youthful 
strength  and  beauty  through  the  familiar  land,  at 
last  he  forgot  the  condition.  Dismounting,  his 
feet  touched  the  ground,  and  the  enchantment 
vanished.  Suddenly  he  realized  the  passage  of 
time.  His  friends,  the  heroes  of  his  youth,  were 
dead  and  forgotten.  He  was  very  old ;  his  strength 
had  withered  away.  The  joyous  paganism  in 
which  he  had  been  bred  had  been  driven  away. 
He  saw  processions  of  monks  and  nuns,  and  heard 
the  sound  of  church  bells,  and  saw  over  all  the 


204       A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

shadow  of  the  cross.  He  belonged  to  the  old  order 
that  had  passed  away,  now  the  destinies  of  the 
land  were  in  the  hands  of  new  men. 

Something  of  this  same  caution  must  be  used 
by  those  who  would  see  the  St.  Francis  whom  the 
people  long  ago  loved  and  worshiped.  He  is 
the  embodiment  of  mediaeval  goodness.  Let  us 
beware  of  disenchanting  literalism,  lest  suddenly 
the  radiant  youth  disappear  and  we  see  only  the 
relic  of  an  age  that  has  passed  away. 

Let  us  not  look  back  at  St.  Francis.  Let  us 
stand  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century 
and  look  forward.  Let  us  share  the  dream  of 
the  youth  who  went  through  the  forest  singing 
the  praise  of  God. 

The  transformation  of  worldly  ambition  into 
spiritual  was  never  more  vividly  told  than  in  the 
legend  of  St.  Francis,  by  the  Three  Companions. 
We  see  Francis  the  gay  son  of  Peter  Bernardone, 
merchant  of  Assisi,  transformed  into  a  knight  of 
Lady  Poverty. 

"  Then  a  few  years  later  a  certain  noble  of  the 
city  of  Assisi  provided  himself  with  warlike  gear 
to  go  into  Apulia  to  increase  his  profit  of  money 
and  renown.  Upon  hearing  this,  Francis  did 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED        205 

aspire  to  go  with  him  and  to  be  made  a  knight 
by  a  certain  count,  Gentile  by  name ;  wherefore 
he  made  ready  stuffs  as  costly  as  he  could,  poorer 
in  riches  ttian  his  fellow  citizen,  but  more  profuse 
in  largesse.  One  night  when  he  had  given  all 
his  thoughts  to  bringing  this  to  pass,  and  was 
fevered  with  the  desire  for  making  the  journey, 
he  was  visited  by  the  Lord,  who  draweth  him  as 
one  eager  for  glory  to  the  pinnacle  of  glory  by  a 
vision  and  uplifteth  him.  For  while  sleeping  that 
night  one  appeared  unto  him,  calling  him  by 
name,  and  leading  him  into  the  palace  of  a  fair 
bride,  very  pleasant  and  full  of  knightly  armor, 
to  wit,  glittering  shields  and  other  apparel  hang 
ing  on  the  wall  as  it  were  waiting  for  knights  to 
accoutre  them  therewithal.  And  while  he,  rejoi 
cing  greatly,  marveled  silently  within  himself  what 
this  might  be,  he  asked  whose  were  these  arms 
flashing  with  such  splendor  and  this  so  pleasant 
palace  ?  And  the  answer  was  made  him  that  the 
palace  and  all  things  therein  were  his  own  and  his 
knights'.  And  thus  awakening  with  joyous  heart 
he  rose  early.  .  .  .  And  so  much  gayer  than  his 
wont  did  he  seem  that  many  wondered  thereat, 
and  asked  whence  had  he  such  joy,  unto  whom 


206       A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

he  would  reply,  "  I  know  that  I  shall  be  a  great 
prince." 

It  was  not  the  sense  of  sin  that  proved  the 
beginning  of  a  new  life  to  this  light-hearted  Ital 
ian.  It  was  rather  the  sense  of  a  higher  chivalry. 
Another  vision  came  to  him.  A  voice  asked, 
" '  Which  can  do  the  better  for  thee,  the  lord  or 
the  servant  ? ' 

"And  when  he  answered,  4  The  lord,'  that  other 
said  again  unto  him ,  4  Wherefore  then  dost  thou 
leave  the  lord  for  the  servant,  and  a  rich  lord  for 
a  poor  ? '  .  .  .  Then  waking  he  began  earnestly  to 
ponder  this  vision.  And  just  as  in  the  first  vision 
he  had  been,  as  it  were,  quite  carried  out  of 
himself  for  his  great  joy,  coveting  worldly  good 
fortune,  so  in  this  vision  he  withdrew  within  him 
self  entirely,  wondering  at  its  might,  and  medi 
tating  so  earnestly  that  he  could  sleep  no  more 
that  night." 

At  last  the  new  vision  took  form  in  an  enthu 
siastic  way  of  life.  In  the  church  Francis  heard 
the  words  of  the  gospels,  "  Take  no  gold  nor 
silver  nor  money  in  your  purses,  nor  two  coats, 
nor  shoes,  nor  staff." 

No  further  did  he  need  to  listen.    Throwing 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED        207 

away  his  purse,  and  putting  on  the  garb  of  a 
peasant,  he  devoted  himself  henceforth  not  sim 
ply  to  the  service  of  the  poor,  but  to  the  worship 
of  Poverty.  Dante  in  memorable  words  described 
this  lover-like  devotion. 

For  he  in  youth  his  father's  wrath  incurred 
For  certain  Dame,  to  whom  as  unto  death 
The  gate  of  pleasure  no  one  doth  unlock  ; 

Then  day  by  day  more  fervently  he  loved  her. 
She  reft  of  her  first  husband,  scorned,  obscure, 
One  thousand  and  one  hundred  years  and  more, 
Waited  without  a  suitor  till  he  came. 

So  that  when  Mary  still  remained  below 
She  mounted  up  with  Christ  upon  the  cross! 
But  that  too  darkly  I  may  not  proceed, 
Francis  and  Poverty  for  these  two  lovers 
Take  thou  henceforward  in  my  speech  diffuse. 
Their  concord  and  their  joyous  semblances 
The  love,  the  wonder,  and  the  sweet  regard, 
They  made  to  be  the  cause  of  holy  thoughts. 

Francis  and  Poverty  —  these  lovers  seem 
strange  indeed  to  twentieth-century  eyes.  An  age 
when  philanthropy  strives  for  the  abolition  of 
poverty  and  invites  enlightened  self-interest  to  its 
aid  cannot  readily  understand  one  who  welcomed 
poverty  as  a  blessed  condition.  "  No  man,"  said  a 


208        A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

disciple  of  St.  Francis,  "  was  ever  so  covetous  of 
wealth  as  he  of  poverty." 

We  hear  St.  Francis  discoursing  with  brother 
Leo  concerning  perfect  bliss.  It  lies  not  in  know 
ledge  or  power  or  even  in  the  ability  to  convert 
the  infidels  to  the  Holy  Faith.  "  When  we  shall 
come  to  St.  Mary  of  the  Angels  dripping  with 
rain  and  tormented  with  cold  and  hunger,  and  we 
shall  knock  at  the  door,  and  the  porter  shall  say, 
4  Who  are  ye  ? '  and  we  shall  answer,  4  We  are 
your  brethren,'  and  he  shall  say,  4  You  lie,  you  are 
two  knaves  that  go  about  deceiving  the  people 
and  stealing  from  the  poor  '  —  if,  when  he  leaves 
us  in  the  cold  and  wet  we  shall  patiently  endure, 
and  say  within  ourselves,  '  Perhaps  the  porter 
reads  us  aright,'  then,  O  brother  Leo,  thou  mayest 
say,  4  Herein  lies  perfect  bliss.'  " 

We  hear  the  passionate  prayer,  4<  O  Lord  Jesus, 
point  out  to  me  the  ways  of  poverty  which  were 
so  dear  to  thee.  O  Jesus,  who  chosest  to  be  poor, 
the  favor  I  ask  of  thee  is  to  give  me  the  privilege 
of  poverty  and  to  be  enriched  by  thy  blessing." 

This  was  not  the  temper  of  ordinary  asceticism. 
St.  Francis  was  in  temper  more  an  Epicurean  than 
a  Stoic.  He  was  a  lover  of  pleasure  and  was  not 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED       209 

content  with  any  kind  of  pleasure  short  of  what 
he  conceived  to  be  the  highest.  The  ascetic  was 
interested  primarily  in  the  salvation  of  his  own 
soul.  Wealth  and  comfort  were  the  temptations 
of  the  devil  to  cheat  him  of  his  future  reward. 
The  hermit  accepted  poverty  as  the  hard  road  to 
Heaven;  to  St.  Francis  it  was  Heaven  itself. 

"  Property  is  robbery,"  he  would  have  said,  but 
not  in  the  sense  in  which  a  modern  communist 
would  use  the  words.  It  is  the  robbery  not  of 
one's  neighbor  but  of  one's  self.  We  take  for 
granted  that  wealth  is  a  good  thing  and  poverty 
an  evil.  No,  St.  Francis  would  say,  there  is  no 
good  thing  but  what  is  good  for  the  soul.  It  is 
good  to  be  humble,  sympathetic,  and  thankful. 
It  is  good  to  be  conscious  of  God's  presence 
.everywhere  and  to  be  close  to  the  lowliest  of  his 
creatures.  The  means  of  this  grace  are  nearer  to 
the  peasant  than  to  the  prince.  There  are  some 
things  that  wealth  buys.  The  rich  man  has  his 
comforts,  his  sheltered  home,  his  group  of  friends 
and  dependents,  his  servants  and  his  wide  estates ; 
his  is  the  meekness  that  inherits  the  earth. 

St.  Francis  found  joy  in  the  sacrifices  and  aus 
terities  which  to  others  were  so  painful.  The  pre- 


2io        A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

dominant  note  is  that  of  gladness.  In  the  midst 
of  his  penances  he  is  light-hearted.  He  interpreted 
more  literally  than  we  do  the  words,  "  Take  no 
thought  for  the  morrow."  Some  things  are  pos 
sible  in  Umbria  and  Galilee  that  seem  wildly  im 
practicable  under  the  fickle  skies  of  New  England. 
The  sober  prose  of  religion  may  be  translated  into 
all  languages  and  verified  by  all  human  experi 
ence,  but  there  is  an  idyllic  poetry  of  religion  that 
belongs  only  to  the  climate  where  that  poetry 
had  birth.  "  The  Little  Flowers  of  St.  Francis  " 
grew  out  of  the  same  kindly  soil  and  under  the 
same  friendly  skies  that  nourished  the  lilies  that 
Jesus  loved. 

St.  Francis  always  wore  his  halo  with  an  easy 
grace.  In  spite  of  his  scourgings  and  fastings  he 
was  blithe  and  debonair.  He  was  saint-errant,  as 
full  of  romance  as  any  knight-errant  of  them  all. 
He  was  a  lover  of  spiritual  adventure,  and  de 
lighted  to  attempt  the  impossible. 

To  St.  Francis  voluntary  poverty  meant  spir 
itual  freedom.  The  preacher  was  no  longer  de 
pendent  on  powerful  patrons  or  rich  parishioners 
or  even  on  the  fickle  multitudes.  The  missionary 
did  not  need  a  missionary  board.  He  did  not 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED        211 

have  to  wait  for  a  church  building  to  be  erected 
and  a  pulpit  to  be  prepared.  Even,  a  hermitage 
was  a  superfluity.  "The  true  hermit,"  said  St. 
Francis,  "  carries  his  cell  about  with  him."  And 
so  he  and  his  disciples  preached  and  asked  no 
man's  leave.  Through  all  the  byways  of  Italy 
they  wandered,  proclaiming  that  God  was  in 
the  fields  as  well  as  in  the  churches.  Entering  a 
village  Brother  Francis  would  say,  "  Love  God 
and  repent,  good  people.  Love  God  and  do  pen 
ance."  And  Brother  Egidio  would  say,  "Yes, 
good  people,  do  as  Brother  Francis  says,  for  he 
says  what  is  right." 

And  if  there  were  no  people  to  preach  to  there 
were  always  our  sisters,  the  birds,  and  now  and 
then  there  was  a  wicked  wolf  who  would  yield  to 
moral  suasion.  We  smile  at  this  way  of  preach 
ing  to  every  creature,  but  it  is  as  we  smile  at  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  one  we  love. 

Many  a  preacher  who  has  confined  his  preach 
ing  to  human  kind  has  put  less  good  sense  into 
his  sermons  and  shown  less  insight  into  the  causes 
of  sin  than  did  Francis  in  his  discourse  to  the 
wolf  of  Gubbio.  The  inhabitants  who  had  suf 
fered  from  his  depredations  hated  him  for  his 


212        A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

wolfish  iniquities.  The  saint  saw  that  the  cause 
of  the  evil  was  economic  rather  than  moral.  He 
was  a  right-minded  wolf;  the  trouble  was  that  he 
was  hungry.  St.  Francis  entered  into  a  covenant 
of  peace  with  him. 

"  'Brother  Wolf,  inasmuch  as  it  pleases  you  to 
make  and  keep  this  peace,  I  promise  you  that  so 
long  as  you  shall  live  you  shall  not  suffer  hunger, 
forasmuch  as  I  am  aware  that  hunger  has  caused 
your  every  crime.  But  since  I  have  got  for  you 
this  grace,  I  require,  Brother  Wolf,  your  promise 
never  again  to  do  harm  to  any  human  being, 
neither  to  any  beast.  Do  you  promise  *? '  And 
St.  Francis  stretching  forth  his  hand,  the  wolf 
uplifted  his  right  paw  and  gave  him  the  pledge 
of  faith  as  best  he  could." 

It  was  in  the  same  spirit  that  St.  Francis 
went  forth  on  his  mission  to  the  Sultan.  The 
Crusaders  had  gone  forth  to  destroy  the  infidels. 
Francis,  in  the  simplicity  of  his  heart,  thought  the 
better  way  would  be  to  convert  them.  Neither 
way  proved  to  be  altogether  effective,  but  cer 
tainly  the  latter  plan  was  the  more  Christian. 

In  the  history  of  preaching  there  have  been 
many  vicissitudes.  Sometimes  the  preacher  has 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED        213 

been  a  philosopher,  sometimes  an  advocate,  some 
times  he  has  adopted  the  tone  of  a  man  of  busi 
ness.  In  the  preaching  of  St.  Francis  we  are  taken 
back  to  the  time  of  the  wandering  minstrels. 

"  So  great  was  the  sweetness  and  consolation 
of  his  spirit  that  he  called  for  Brother  Pacincus 
whom  the  world  entitled  the  King  of  Verse  and 
Courteous  Doctor  of  Song,  and  desired  to  send 
him  with  the  other  friars  to  go  together  through 
the  world,  preaching  and  singing  the  "  Praises  of 
the  Lord."  And  he  desired  that  he  among  them 
who  was  the  best  preacher  should  first  preach  to 
the  people,  and  when  the  sermon  was  ended  all 
the  others  should  sing  together  the  "  Praises  of  the 
Lord,"  as  the  Lord's  minstrels;  and  at  the  end 
he  desired  the  preacher  should  say  to  the  people, 
4  We  are  the  Lord's  minstrels,  and  the  reward  we 
ask  of  you  is  that  you  turn  to  true  repentance.' " 

No  wonder  that  the  people  loved  Brother  Fran 
cis  when  he  brought  religion  to  them  in  such  a 
fashion,  and  that  there  would  gather  around  him 

A  crowd  of  shepherds  with  as  sunburnt  looks 
As  may  be  read  of  in  Arcadian  books. 

With  all  his  saintly  austerities  St.  Francis 
was  always  a  gentleman.  Even  the  most  admir- 


2i4       A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

ing  biographers  cannot  hide  his  humanness.  The 
Lives  of  the  Saints  do  not  contain  many  such 
incidents  as  that  in  the  chapter  in  "  The  Mirror 
of  Perfection "  entitled  "  How  he  comforted  a 
Sick  Friar  by  eating  Grapes  with  Him."  It  was  a 
little  thing  to  do,  but  I  am  sure  that  St.  Dominic 
would  never  have  thought  of  it.  The  friar  had 
been  overdoing  the  mortification  of  the  flesh,  and 
had  fallen  ill.  "  Blessed  Francis  said  to  himself: 
4  If  that  friar  would  eat  ripe  grapes  in  the  morn 
ing  I  believe  he  would  be  cured !  And  as  he 
thought  so  he  did.  Rising  early  in  the  morning, 
he  called  the  friar  secretly,  and  took  him  to  a 
vineyard  near  the  place,  and  choosing  a  vine  that 
had  good  grapes  fit  for  eating,  he  sat  down  by  the 
vine  with  the  friar  and  began  to  eat  grapes,  that 
the  friar  should  not  be  ashamed  of  eating  alone. 
.  .  .  And  all  the  days  of  his  life  this  friar  remem 
bered  the  pity  and  compassion  shown  him  by  the 
blessed  Father,  and  would  relate  what  had  hap 
pened  to  the  other  friars." 

It  was  an  age  of  miracles,  but  St.  Francis  never 
allowed  them  to  clutter  up  his  little  world.  They 
must  keep  their  place.  When  Brother  Peter  died 
in  great  sanctity,  he  was  immediately  worshiped 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED        215 

as  a  saint.  Great  crowds  came  to  his  tomb,  and 
many  miracles  were  wrought.  This  was  well,  but 
there  must  be  a  measure  in  all  things.  So  one  day 
St.  Francis  went  to  the  door  of  the  tomb,  and  his 
most  persuasive  voice  said,  "  Brother  Peter,  in 
your  lifetime  you  gave  perfect  obedience.  Know 
that  your  brethren  are  disturbed  by  the  crowds 
that  come  to  your  tomb.  I  command  you,  by 
holy  obedience,  that  you  work  no  more  miracles." 
And  from  that  day  Brother  Peter  abstained  from 
any  interference  with  the  order  of  nature. 

A  true  son  of  the  Church,  yet  because  of  the 
unworldliness  of  his  nature  Francis  from  the  first 
transcended  the  sphere  of  ecclesiasticism,  and  lived 
in  the  freedom  of  the  spirit.  In  an  age  when  ritu 
alism  was  triumphant  he  chose  an  unsacerdotal 
ministry.  At  a  time  when  the  highest  piety  was 
supposed  to  manifest  itself  in  the  building  and 
adornment  of  churches,  he  insisted  on  the  higher 
grace  of  charity.  When  a  case  of  need  was  pre 
sented  to  him,  he  said :  "  Sell  the  ornaments  on 
the  altar  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.  Be  assured  that 
she  would  be  more  pleased  to  have  her  altar  with 
out  adornment  than  to  see  the  gospel  of  her  Son 
any  longer  set  at  naught." 


2i 6        A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

Pope  Innocent  had  many  who  came  with  am 
bitious  plans.  There  were  always  monks  who 
desired  to  be  abbots,  and  priests  who  desired  to 
be  bishops.  But  one  day  Brother  Francis  came 
desiring  that  he  and  certain  poor  brethren  might 
be  allowed  to  live  according  to  the  rule  of  the 
gospel.  They  were  not  content  to  be  poor  after 
the  conventional  fashion  of  the  great  monastic  in 
stitutions,  where  corporate  wealth  was  married  to 
individual  poverty.  Their  poverty  should  be  real. 
Almost  everything  had  been  organized  around  a 
treasury.  They  would  like  to  organize  brotherly 
kindness,  patience,  humility,  and  love  according 
to  their  own  laws. 

And  the  request  was  made  so  simply  that  Pope 
Innocent  could  do  nothing  but  grant  it,  though 
it  made  his  own  ambitions  stand  out  in  startling 
contrast. 

The  life  of  St.  Francis  was  very  mediaeval, 
which  was  but  another  way  of  saying  that  its 
idealism  was  not  balanced  by  the  scientific  tem 
per.  Men  in  those  days  delighted  in  paradoxes, 
and  were  contented  with  no  half  measures.  His 
experience  was  different  from  ours.  He  did  not 


A   SAINT   RECANONIZED        217 

confront  the  poverty  of  the  slums  of  our  great 
cities.  It  was  the  poverty  of  Umbria.  It  was  a 
poverty  that  was  acquainted  with  hunger  and 
which  wore  coarse  garments, -but  it  had  the  free 
dom  of  the  fields  and  the  open  roads.  We 
have  problems  to  solve  with  which  he  was  un 
acquainted. 

Yet  there  is  something  in  his  daring  paradox 
which  attracts  us.  Beneath  all  its  extravagance 
there  is  a  vitality  in  the  joyous  worship  of  My 
Lady  Poverty.  For  what  is  worship  ?  It  is,  lit 
erally,  worth-ship.  It  is  the  recognition  of  intrin 
sic  values.  It  is  just  here  that  the  modern  man  is 
beginning  to  be  distrustful  of  himself.  He  has 
been  marvelously  successful  in  obtaining  his  de 
sires,  but  has  he  desired  the  best  things'?  In  the 
height  of  his  achievement  he  cannot  help  asking, 
"After  all,  is  it  worth  what  it  has  cost?" 

Things  turn  out  differently  from  what  had  been 
expected.  A  life  devoted  to  personal  gain  is 
likely  to  be  disappointing.  A  whole  community 
which  has  no  other  means  of  estimating  worth 
than  the  increase  in  wealth  is  still  more  disap 
pointing.  It  has  no  proper  means  of  government. 
A  plutocracy  is  but  another  name  for  moral  an- 


218        A   SAINT    RECANONIZED 

archy.  Special  interests  become  intolerably  dom 
ineering  and  override  the  common  good.  In  a 
society  where  everything  is  measured  by  mor 
where  is  the  limitation  to  despotism  ?  What 
is  to  prevent  the  rich  man  from  buying  up  his 
neighbors  and  using  all  their  talents  to  serve  his 
own  narrow  purposes?  He  is  able  to  pay  for  the 
best  food  and  drink  and  shelter.  Why  may  he 
not  bend  to  his  will  the  best  human  ability? 

The  answer  comes  from  the  iconoclasts,  who 
strike  boldly  at  the  idols  of  the  market-place. 
They  have  something  that  is  not  for  sale,  and  they 
can  afford  to  laugh  at  the  highest  bidders.  They 
are  not  asking  tavors.  They  are  likely  to  be  in 
experienced  in  the  ways  of  the  world,  but  the 
world  fears  them  as  it  fears  all  forces  which  it 
cannot  understand.  They  cannot  be  cajoled  or 
threatened,  for  they  have  learned  that  it  is  possible 
to  be  happy  and  poor. 

My  Lady  Poverty  has  still  her  worshipers. 
She  has  long  been  honored  by  the  devotion  of 
true  artists.  The  man  of  science  gravely  acknow 
ledges  her,  and  confesses  without  shame  that  he  is 
too  busy  to  make  money.  There  are  statesmen 
who  are  the  despair  of  the  part}'  managers  because 


A    SAINT   RECAXONIZED        219 

when  the  question  comes,  "  What  can  we  do  for 
you  ?  "  they  answer  "  Nothing."  Every  now  and 
then  there  occurs  that  disconcerting  phenomenon 
which  we  call  genius.  It  upsets  all  calculations 
and  refuses  to  respond  to  the  law  of  supply  and 
demand.  The  second  best  may  be  bought,  but  the 
very  best  is  given  away.  Now  and  then,  too,  out 
of  our  conventional  gentilities  there  comes  an 
ideal  gentleman.  He  would  adorn  the  most  ex 
clusive  circles,  were  it  not  that  he  has  a  passion 
for  the  best  society,  and  he  has  learned  that  the 
best  society  is  never  exclusive.  He  takes  the  part 
of  the  uttermost  man,  and  finds  his  joy  in  the  com 
panionship  of  those  who  are  aspiring  and  strug 
gling.  And  there  is  the  increasing  number  of  the 
nature-lovers  who  enter  into  the  religious  feelings 
which  St.  Francis  voiced  in  "  The  Song  of  the 
Creatures."  They  love  one  who  could  worship 
out  of  doors,  and  speak  familiarly  of  Master  Sun 
and  Brother  Wind  and  Sister  Water.  As  they  sit 
around  their  campfires  they  join  heartily  in  the 
praise  of  Brother  Fire.  "  He  is  jocund,  robust, 
and  strong  and  bright." 

They  love  to  read  again  the  story  of  how  St. 
Francis    and   Brother    Masseo  stopped   at  noon 


220       A   SAINT   RECANONIZED 

under  a  tree  where  there  was  a  broad  smooth  stone 
to  serve  as  a  table  for  their  simple  meal.  Close 
by  was  a  spring  of  cold  water. 

"  What  a  treasure  we  have  here ! "  cried  Francis 
in  delight. 

"  Father,"  answered  Brother  Masseo,  "  how  can 
you  talk  so  when  we  have  no  tablecloth  or  knife 
or  cup ! " 

Brother  Masseo  voices  the  opinion  of  the  major 
ity,  but  there  are  increasing  numbers  of  true 
Franciscans.  St.  Francis  is  the  patron  saint  of 
those  who  believe  in  Nature  as  well  as  in  Grace. 
In  spite  of  all  his  austerities  he  is  endeared  to  us 
because  he  represented  the  bohemianism  of  piety. 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 
**>*» 

THE  exercises  of  Commencement  Day  had 
been  unusually  interesting,  though  pro 
longed.  I  had  attended  them  all.  I  had  listened 
to  the  wisdom  of  the  selected  members  of  the 
graduating  class,  and  afterwards  to  the  less  digni 
fied  but  more  optimistic  remarks  of  the  old  grad 
uates.  The  general  impression  that  I  received 
was  that  though  the  country  had  been  in  danger, 
the  worst  was  over. 

Returning  home  I  found  a  caller  waiting  for  me 
in  the  library.  He  was  a  rather  handsome  man  in 
his  way,  but  a  close  observer  might  have  noticed 
a  certain  shiftiness  in  his  eyes  and  hard  lines  about 
his  mouth,  and  perhaps  other  signs  of  a  misspent 
life.  Not  being  a  close  observer,  I  did  not  notice 
any  of  these  things.  He  struck  me  as  an  ordinary 
person  with  whom  it  might  be  a  pleasure  to  talk. 
I  was  somewhat  surprised  at  his  first  remark, 
which  was  made  by  way  of  introduction. 


222         AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

"  I  am,"  he  said,  "  well  known  to  the  police, 
and  am  said  to  be  the  most  dangerous  criminal  of 
my  class  now  at  large.  I  am  an  expert  forger  and 
have  served  time  in  four  prisons." 

His  frank  statement  was  preliminary  to  the  re 
quest  for  a  temporary  loan  that  would  enable  him 
to  complete  the  work  of  reformation,  that  was  en 
dangered  by  a  lack  of  funds.  It  was  late  in  the 
day,  and  before  acceding  to  his  request  it  was 
necessary  that  there  should  be  some  investigation, 
so  I  asked  him  to  call  on  the  morrow. 

"  I  have  been  at  the  Commencement  exercises 
all  day,"  I  said,  "  and  am  not  in  a  condition  to  be 
of  much  help  to  you  just  now;  but  if  you  would 
like  to  stay  a  while  and  chat,  I  should  be  glad." 

He  welcomed  the  suggestion,  and,  now  that  the 
matter  of  business  had  been  postponed,  he  was  at 
his  ease.  In  a  friendly  way  he  made  me  acquainted 
with  the  general  theory  of  forging  and  check-rais 
ing, —  at  least  so  far  as  it  is  intelligible  to  the  lay 
mind.  His  criticism  of  prison  management  was 
acute,  and  he  pointed  out  the  seamy  side  of  the 
plans  of  the  reformers.  I  listened  with  docility  to 
his  story  of  the  under  world.  He  was  a  well-edu 
cated  man  with  an  appreciation  of  good  literature, 


AS  HE   SEES    HIMSELF          223 

which  was  a  characteristic,  he  informed  me,  of  most 
forgers.  He  was  especially  interested  in  sociology, 
and  had  all  its  best  phrases  at  his  tongue's  end.  He 
attributed  all  his  misfortunes  to  Society.  For  one 
thing  I  listened  in  vain,  —  the  admission  that  in 
some  respects  he  might  himself  have  been  remiss. 
The  idea  of  reciprocal  obligation  did  not  seem  to 
have  any  place  in  his  philosophy.  As  delicately 
as  I  could  I  tried  to  turn  the  conversation  from 
the  sin  of  Society,  which  I  readily  acknowledged, 
to  the  less  obvious  point  of  personal  responsi 
bility.  Granting  that  Society  was  imperfectly 
organized,  that  juries  were  ignorant,  and  judges 
lacking  in  the  quality  of  mercy,  and  prison  ward 
ens  harsh,  and  chaplains  too  simple-minded,  were 
there  not  faults  on  the  other  side  that  it  might 
be  profitable  to  correct  ?  It  was  of  no  use  to  try 
to  induce  such  currents  of  thought;  they  were 
quickly  short-circuited. 

At  last  I  said,  "You  have  told  me  what  you 
did  before  you  concluded  to  reform.  I  am  curi 
ous  to  know  how,  in  those  days,  you  looked  at 
things.  Was  there  anything  which  you  would  n't 
have  done,  not  because  you  were  afraid  of  the 
law,  but  because  you  felt  it  would  be  wrong  ?  " 


224          AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  there  is  one  thing  I  never 
would  do,  because  it  always  seemed  low  down. 
I  never  would  steal." 

It  was  evident  that  further  discussion  would  be 
unprofitable  without  definition  of  terms.  I  found 
that  by  stealing  he  meant  petty  larceny,  which  he 
abhorred.  In  our  condemnation  of  the  sneak  thief 
and  the  pickpocket  we  were  on  common  ground. 
His  feeling  of  reprobation  was,  if  anything,  more 
intense  than  that  which  I  felt  at  the  time.  .He 
alluded  to  the  umbrellas  and  other  portable  arti 
cles  he  had  noticed  in  the  hallway.  Any  one 
who  would  take  advantage  of  an  unsuspecting 
householder  by  purloining  such  things  was  a  de 
generate.  He  had  no  dealings  with  such  moral 
imbeciles. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  I  might  press  the  analogy 
which  instantly  occurred  to  me  between  "  steal 
ing  "  and  forgery. 

"  Do  they  not,"  I  said,  "  seem  to  you  to  amount 
to  very  much  the  same  thing  ?  " 

I  had  struck  a  wrong  note.  Analogies  are 
ticklish  things  to  handle,  for  things  which  are 
alike  in  certain  respects  are  apt  to  be  quite  differ 
ent  in  other  respects.  His  mind  was  intent  on 


AS    HE   SEES   HIMSELF          225 

the  differences.  The  sneak  thief,  he  told  me,  is 
a  vulgar  fellow  of  no  education.  The  forger  and 
the  check-raiser  are  experts.  They  are  playing 
a  game.  Their  wits  are  pitted  against  the  wits  of 
the  men  who  are  paid  high  salaries  for  detecting 
them.  They  belong  to  quite  different  spheres.  If 
we  are  looking  for  analogies  we  should  look  up 
and  not  down. 

44  You  wanted  to  know,"  he  said,  44  what  was 
the  difference  between  stealing  and  check-raising. 
Now,  let  me  ask  you  a  question.  What 's  the 
difference  between  check-raising  and  some  of 
those  big  financial  operations  we  've  all  been  read 
ing  about  ^  Suppose  I  have  a  check  for  five 
dollars,  and  I  put  my  brains  into  it  and  I  manip 
ulate  it  so  that  I  can  pass  it  off  for  five  hun 
dred.  I  shove  it  in  to  the  cashier  and  he  takes  it. 
Before  he  finds  out  his  mistake,  I  have  made 
myself  scarce.  What 's  the  difference  between 
that  transaction  and  what  the  4  big  fellows '  on  the 
street  are  doing  ?  "  He  mentioned  several  names 
that  I  had  not  thought  of  in  that  connection. 

44  The  difference,"  said  I,  44  is  —  "  Then  it  oc 
curred  to  me  that  it  was  a  subject  to  which  I 
should  give  further  thought.  So  we  postponed 


226          AS   HE    SEES   HIMSELF 

the  conversation  till    he    should    call    again  — 
which  he  never  did. 


I  may  be  doing  injustice  to  my  friend  the 
forger,  but  he  gave  me  the  impression  that  he 
considered  himself  to  be,  on  the  whole,  a  rather 
admirable  character.  His  proposed  change  of 
business  seemed  to  be  rather  a  concession  to  the 
prejudices  of  the  legal  profession  than  the  result 
of  any  personal  scruple.  As  he  saw  himself 
he  was  a  man  of  idealistic  temper  whose  ideals 
conflicted  with  social  usage.  Society  was  all  the 
time  getting  into  his  way,  and  in  the  inevitable 
collisions  he  had  usually  the  worst  of  it.  He 
regretted  this,  but  he  bore  no  malice.  By  the 
time  a  man  has  reached  middle  life  and  accumu 
lated  a  good  deal  of  experience  he  takes  the  world 
as  he  finds  it. 

He  had  encased  himself  in  a  moral  system 
which  was  self-consistent  and  which  explained  to 
his  own  satisfaction  all  that  had  happened  to  him. 
One  thing  fitted  into  another,  and  there  was  no 
room  for  self-reproach. 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  depict  the 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF          227 

character  of  an  accomplished  scamp.  But  Gil  Bias 
and  Roderick  Random  and  Jonathan  Wild  the 
Great  are  after  all  seen  from  the  outside.  The 
author  may  attempt  to  do  them  justice,  but  there 
is  a  vein  of  irony  that  reveals  a  judgment  of  his 
own.  They  lack  the  essential  element  of  incor- 
rigibility,  which  is  that  the  scamp  does  not  sus 
pect  himself,  has  not  found  himself  out. 

No  novelist  has  ever  been  able  to  give  such  a 
portraiture  of  a  complacent  criminal  as  was  given 
a  century  ago  in  the  autobiography  of  Stephen 
Burroughs. 

Burroughs  was  the  son  of  a  worthy  clergyman 
of  Hanover,  New  Hampshire,  and  from  the  outset 
was  looked  upon  as  a  black  sheep.  As  a  mere 
boy  he  ran  away  from  home  and  joined  the  army, 
and  then  with  equal  irresponsibility  deserted.  He 
became  a  ship's  surgeon,  a  privateersman,  then  a 
self-ordained  minister,  a  counterfeiter,  a  teacher 
of  youth,  a  founder  of  libraries,  and  a  miscella 
neous  philanthropist.  He  was  a  patriot  and  an 
optimist  and  an  enthusiastic  worker  in  the  cause 
of  general  education.  He  was  chock-full  of  fine 
sentiment  and  had  a  gift  for  its  expression.  He 
enjoyed  doing  good,  though  in  his  own  way,  and 


228          AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

never  neglected  any  opportunity  to  rebuke  those 
who  he  felt  were  in  the  wrong.  He  had  a  desire 
to  reform  the  world,  and  had  no  doubt  of  the  plans 
which  he  elaborated.  He  was  capable  on  occa 
sions  of  acts  of  magnanimity,  which,  while  not 
appreciated  by  the  public,  gave  him  great  pleas 
ure  in  the  retrospect.  The  intervals  between  his 
various  enterprises  were  spent  in  New  England 
jails.  These  experiences  only  deepened  his  love  of 
liberty,  which  was  one  of  the  passions  of  his  life. 

Burroughs  had  a  happy  disposition  that  enabled 
him  to  get  a  measure  of  satisfaction  out  of  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  his  life.  He  had  learned  neither 
to  worry  nor  to  repine.  He  was  not  troubled  by 
the  harsh  judgments  of  his  fellow  men,  for  he  had 
learned  to  find  his  happiness  in  the  approbation 
of  his  own  conscience. 

He  writes  :  "  I  possess  an  uncommon  share 
of  sensibility,  and  at  the  same  time  maintain  an 
equality  of  mind  that  is  uncommon,  particularly 
in  the  midst  of  those  occurrences  which  are  cal 
culated  to  wound  the  feelings.  I  have  learned 
fortitude  in  the  school  of  adversity.  In  draining 
the  cup  of  bitterness  to  its  dregs,  I  have  been 
taught  to  despise  the  occurrences  of  misfortune. 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF          229 

This  one  thing  I  fully  believe,  that  our  happiness 
is  more  in  our  power  than  is  generally  thought, 
or  at  least  we  have  the  ability  of  preventing  that 
misery  which  is  so  common  to  unfortunate  situ 
ations.  No  state  or  condition  in  life,  but  from 
which  we  may  (if  we  exercise  that  reason  which 
the  God  of  Nature  has  given  us)  draw  comfort 
and  happiness.  We  are  too  apt  to  be  governed 
by  the  opinions  of  others,  and  if  they  think  our 
circumstances  unhappy,  to  consider  them  so  our 
selves,  and  of  course  make  them  so.  The  state  of 
mind  is  the  only  criterion  of  happiness  or  misery." 

It  was  from  this  lofty  point  of  view  that  Ste 
phen  Burroughs  wrote  the  history  of  his  own  life. 
His  tendency  to  didacticism  interferes  with  the 
limpid  flow  of  the  narrative.  Sometimes  a  whole 
chapter  will  be  given  over  to  moralizings,  but  the 
observations  are  never  painful.  They  all  reveal 
the  author's  cheerful  acquiescence  in  the  inevita 
bility  of  his  own  actions.  Along  with  this  there 
is  the  air  of  chastened  surprise  over  the  fact  that 
he  was  made  the  object  of  persecution. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  narrative  one  re 
cognizes  an  independence  which  would  do  credit 
to  a  better  man.  In  New  England,  clergymen 


AS   HE   SEES    HIMSELF 

have  always  been  looked  upon  as  making  good 
ancestors,  and  Burroughs  might  have  been  par 
doned  if  he  had  shown  some  family  pride.  From 
this  weakness  he  was  free.  "  I  am,"  he  says,  "  the 
only  son  of  a  clergyman,  living  in  Hanover,  in 
the  State  of  New  Hampshire;  and  were  any 
to  expect  merit  from  their  parentage,  I  might 
justly  look  for  that  merit.  But  I  am  so  far  a  Re 
publican  that  I  consider  a  man's  merit  to  rest 
entirely  with  himself,  without  any  regard  to 
family,  blood,  or  connection." 

The  accounts  of  the  escapades  of  his  boyhood 
are  intermingled  with  dissertations  on  the  educa 
tion  of  youth.  "  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  ed 
ucating  youth  for  seven  years,  constantly;  in  the 
course  of  my  business  I  have  endeavored  to  study 
the  operations  of  the  human  heart,  that  I  might 
be  able  to  afford  that  instruction  which  would  be 
salutary;  and  in  this  I  find  one  truth  clearly  es 
tablished,  viz.:  a  child  will  endeavor  to  be  what 
you  make  him  think  mankind  in  general  are." 

The  neglect  of  this  truth  on  the  part  of  his 
parents  and  teachers  was  the  cause  of  much  annoy 
ance  to  Burroughs.  Throughout  his  life  he  was 
the  innocent  victim  of  an  educational  mistake. 


AS   HE   SEES    HIMSELF          231 

Though  after  awhile  he  learned  to  forgive  the  early 
injustice,  one  can  see  that  it  rankled.  He  endeav 
ored  to  think  well  of  mankind  in  general,  but  it 
was  more  difficult  than  if  he  had  been  habituated 
to  the  exercise  in  infancy. 

At  Dartmouth  young  Burroughs  was  pecu 
liarly  unfortunate ;  he  fell  into  bad  company.  As 
an  unkind  fate  would  have  it,  his  room-mate  was 
an  exemplary  young  man  who  was  studying  for 
the  ministry.  It  appears  that  this  misguided  youth 
attempted  to  entice  him  into  what  he  describes  as 
"  a  sour,  morose,  and  misanthropic  line  of  con 
duct."  Nothing  could  have  been  more  disastrous. 
"  To  be  an  inmate  with  such  a  character,  you  will 
readily  conceive,  no  way  comported  with  a  dis 
position  like  mine,  and  consequently  we  never 
enjoyed  that  union  and  harmony  of  feeling  in  our 
intercourse  as  room-mates  which  was  necessary 
for  the  enjoyment  of  social  life." 

To  the  malign  influence  of  his  priggish  room 
mate  several  misfortunes  were  attributed.  In  en 
deavoring  to  restore  the  moral  equilibrium  which 
had  been  disturbed  by  the  too  great  scrupulosity 
of  his  chum,  he  exerted  too  much  strength  in  the 
other  direction.  The  result  was  that  "  a  powerful 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

triumvirate  "  was  formed  against  him  in  the  Fac 
ulty.  The  triumvirate  triumphed  and  his  connec 
tion  with  Dartmouth  ended  suddenly. 

This  gave  occasion  to  a  chapter  on  the  failure 
of  the  institutions  of  learning  to  prepare  for  real 
life.  The  author  declares  "more  than  one  half 
of  the  time  spent  in  the  universities,  according 
to  their  present  establishment  on  this  continent, 
is  thrown  away,  and  that  my  position  is  founded 
in  fact  I  will  endeavor  to  prove." 

I  do  not  see  how  his  argument  is  affected  by 
the  fact  to  which  the  editor  calls  attention  in  a 
carping  footnote.  "  It  is  not  strange  that  the  au 
thor  should  reason  in  this  manner.  He  was  ex 
pelled  from  college  in  the  second  quarter  of  his 
second  year,  and  in  fact  he  studied  but  little  while 
he  was  a  member."  The  editor,  I  fear,  had  a  nar 
row  mind  and  judged  according  to  an  academic 
standard  which  Burroughs  would  have  despised. 

From  the  uncongenial  limitations  of  a  college 
town  it  was  a  satisfaction  to  escape  to  sea.  Here 
Burroughs's  versatility  stood  him  in  good  stead. 
"  Having  no  doctor  engaged,  I  undertook  to  act 
in  that  capacity ;  and  after  obtaining  the  assist 
ance,  advice,  and  direction  of  an  old  practitioner, 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF          233 

together  with  marks  set  on  each  parcel  of  medi 
cine,  I  thought  myself  tolerably  well  qualified  to 
perform  the  office  of  a  physician  on  board  the  ship." 

From  his  seafaring  life  Burroughs  returned 
with  his  reputation  under  a  cloud.  There  were 
ugly  rumors  afloat  which  were  readily  believed 
by  a  censorious  world.  For  once  he  confesses 
that  his  philosophy  failed  him.  "  I  returned  to 
my  father's  house  sunken  and  discouraged ;  the 
world  appeared  a  gloomy  chaos ;  the  sun  arose 
to  cast  a  sickly  glimmer  on  surrounding  objects ; 
the  flowers  of  the  field  insulted  my  feelings  with 
their  gayety  and  splendor ;  the  frolicsome  lamb, 
the  playful  kitten,  and  the  antic  colt  were  beheld 
with  those  painful  emotions  which  are  beyond 
description.  Shall  all  nature,  shall  the  brute  cre 
ation  break  out  into  irregular  transports,  by  the 
overflowing  of  pleasing  sensations,  whilst  I  am 
shut  out  from  even  the  dim  rays  of  hope?  " 

Certainly  not.  To  a  mind  constituted  as  was 
his  there  was  an  absurdity  in  the  very  suggestion. 
The  brute  creation  should  not  have  any  mono 
poly  of  comfortable  sensations,  so  he  cheered  up 
immediately  and  spent  the  next  year  loafing 
around  his  father's  house. 


234          AS   HE   SEES    HIMSELF 

He  had  been  on  the  coast  of  Africa  and  had 
taken  part  in  some  strange  scenes,  but  his  moral 
sense  had  not  been  blunted  to  such  an  extent  that 
he  could  not  grieve  over  some  infractions  of  the 
moral  law  which  he  observed  in  peaceful  Han 
over.  He  regretted  that  he  had  been  led  inadver 
tently  by  a  young  man  named  Huntington  to 
join  a  party  which  robbed  a  farmer's  beehive. 

"For  some  unaccountable  reason  or  other, 
youth  are  carried  away  with  false  notions  of  right 
and  wrong.  I  know,  for  instance,  that  Huntington 
possessed  those  principles  of  integrity  that  no 
consideration  would  have  induced  him  to  deprive 
another  of  any  species  of  property,  except  fruit, 
bees,  pigs,  and  poultry.  And  why  it  is  considered 
by  youth  that  depriving  another  of  these  articles 
is  less  criminal  than  stealing  any  other  kind  of 
property,  I  cannot  tell." 

Burroughs  himself  was  inclined  to  take  a 
harsher  view  of  these  transgressions  than  he  did 
of  some  others ;  for  example,  of  counterfeiting, 
in  which  he  was  afterwards  for  a  time  engaged 
during  one  of  his  brief  pastorates. 

The  argument  by  which  his  scruples  in  this  par 
ticular  were  overcome  are  worth  repeating.  The 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF          235 

law  was  indeed  violated  in  its  letter,  but  might 
not  a  justification  be  found  by  one  who  interpreted 
it  in  a  large  spirit  of  charity  ? 

44  Money  is  of  itself  of  consequence  only  as 
we  annex  to  it  a  nominal  value  as  the  represen 
tation  of  property.  Therefore  we  find  the  only 
thing  necessary  to  make  a  matter  valuable  is  to 
induce  the  world  to  deem  it  so ;  and  let  that  es 
teem  be  raised  by  any  means  whatever,  yet  the 
value  is  the  same,  and  no  one  becomes  injured 
by  receiving  it  at  the  valuation." 

The  principle  of  fiat  money  having  been  estab 
lished,  the  only  question  that  remained  was 
whether  the  circumstances  of  the  times  were  such 
as  to  justify  him  in  issuing  the  fiat.  The  answer 
was  in  the  affirmative.  44  That  an  undue  scarcity 
of  cash  now  prevails  is  a  truth  too  obvious  for 
me  to  attempt  to  prove.  Hence  whoever  contrib 
utes  to  increase  the  quantity  of  cash  does  not  only 
himself  but  likewise  the  community  an  essential 
benefit." 

It  was  in  his  attempt  to  benefit  the  community 
in  this  way  that  he  first  experienced  the  ingrati 
tude  of  republics,  being  landed  in  the  Northamp 
ton  jail. 


236         AS  HE  SEES   HIMSELF 

But  to  see  Burroughs  at  his  best  one  musi 
enter  into  his  thoughts  at  that  crisis  in  his  life 
when  he  determined  that  his  true  vocation  was 
preaching.  He  lingers  fondly  on  his  emotions 
at  that  period.  It  was  at  a  time  when  he  hac 
been  driven  out  of  Hanover  for  conduct  which 
had  outraged  the  feelings  of  that  long-suffering 
community. 

"  One  pistareen  was  all  the  ready  cash  I  had  or 
hand,  and  the  suddenness  with  which  I  departed 
deprived  me  of  the  chance  to  raise  more.  Travel 
ing  on  leisurely  I  had  time  for  reflection." 

As  was  usually  the  case  when  he  reflected,  he 
grew  more  serene  and  enjoyed  a  frame  of  mind 
that  bordered  on  the  heroic. 

"  I  began  to  look  about  me  to  see  what  was  tc 
be  done  in  my  present  situation  and  to  what  busi 
ness  I  could  turn  my  attention.  The  practice  of 
law,  which  would  have  been  most  to  my  mind,  I 
could  not  undertake  until  I  had  spent  some  time 
in  the  study,  which  would  have  been  attended 
with  expense  far  beyond  my  abilities;  therefore 
this  object  must  be  laid  aside.  Physic  was  undei 
the  same  embarrassments ;  business  in  the  mer 
cantile  line  I  could  not  pursue  for  want  of  capital 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF          237 

.  .  .  What  can  be  done4?  There  is  one  thing, 
said  contrivance,  that  you  can  do,  and  it  will  an 
swer  your  purpose  —  preach." 

The  idea  came  to  him  as  an  inspiration,  but 
immediately  there  was  suggested  an  objection 
which  to  a  less  resourceful  mind  would  have 
seemed  insuperable.  "  What  an  appearance  should 
I  make  in  my  present  dress  *?  which  consisted  of  a 
light  gray  coat,  with  silver-plated  buttons,  green 
vest,  and  red  velvet  breeches." 

Down  the  Connecticut  valley  he  trudged,  call 
ing  to  mind  his  father's  old  sermons  and  gradually 
working  himself  into  a  state  of  pious  rapture.  The 
heart  of  no  young  pulpiteer  beat  with  more  appro 
priate  emotions  than  his,  when  on  the  next  Sun 
day,  under  an  assumed  name,  he  preached  his  first 
sermon  in  the  village  of  Ludlow.  "  I  awoke  with 
anxious  palpitation  for  the  issue  of  the  day.  I  con 
sidered  this  as  the  most  important  scene  of  my 
life  —  that,  in  a  great  measure,  my  future  happi 
ness  or  wretchedness  depended  on  my  conduct 
this  day.  The  time  for  assembling  approached ! 
I  saw  the  people  come  together.  My  feelings 
were  up  in  arms  against  me,  my  heart  would  al 
most  leap  into  my  mouth.  What  a  strange  thing, 


238          AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

said  I,  is  man !  Why  am  I  thus  perturbated  by 
these  whimsical  feelings  !  " 

The  moment  he  began  the  service  these  per 
turbations  came  to  an  end.  Words  came  in  a 
steady  flow,  and  he  felt  sure  that  he  had  found  his 
true  calling  in  life.  "  No  monarch  when  seated 
on  a  throne  had  more  sensible  feelings  of  pro 
sperity  than  what  I  experienced  at  this  time." 

The  neighboring  town  of  Pelham  being  with 
out  a  minister,  Burroughs  presented  himself  as  a 
candidate,  and  was  enthusiastically  accepted.  He 
made  a  specialty  of  funeral  sermons,  and  was  soon 
in  demand  in  all  the  surrounding  country.  It  was 
at  this  time  also  that  he  became  acquainted  with 
the  coiner  who  showed  him  how  he  might  surrep 
titiously  increase  the  amount  of  cash  in  circulation. 
All  went  well  till  an  enemy  appeared  who  called 
him  by  name  and  revealed  his  antecedents.  All 
Pelham  was  in  an  uproar,  for  the  Pelhamites  were 
"a  people  generally  possessing  violent  passions, 
which,  once  disturbed,  raged  uncontrolled  by  the 
dictates  of  reason,  unpolished  in  their  manners, 
possessing  a  jealous  disposition,  and  either  very 
friendly  or  very  inimical,  not  knowing  a  medium 
between  these  extremes." 


AS   HE  SEES   HIMSELF          239 

In  this  case  they  suddenly  became  very  inim 
ical,  and  Burroughs  was  again  compelled  to  de 
part  under  cover  of  darkness.  His  night  thoughts 
were  always  among  his  very  best. 

"  Journeying  on,  I  had  time  for  reflection.  At 
the  dead  of  night —  all  alone  —  reflection  would 
have  its  operation.  A  very  singular  scene  have  I 
now  passed  through,  said  I,  and  to  what  does  it 
amount  ?  Have  I  acted  with  propriety  as  a  man, 
or  have  I  deviated  from  the  path  of  rectitude  ?  I 
have  had  an  unheard-of,  disagreeable  part  to  act; 
I  do  not  feel  entirely  satisfied  with  myself  in  this 
business,  and  yet  I  do  not  know  how  I  could  have 
done  otherwise,  and  have  made  the  matter  better. 
My  situation  has  been  such  that  I  have  violated 
the  principle  of  veracity  which  we,  implicitly 
pledge  ourselves  to  maintain  towards  each  other, 
as  a  general  thing,  in  society.  Whether  my  pecu 
liar  circumstances  would  warrant  such  a  line  of 
procedure  is  the  question.  I  know  many  things 
will  be  said  in  favor  of  it  as  well  as  against  it." 

From  this  difficult  question  of  casuistry  he 
found  relief  in  reverting  to  the  one  instance  in 
which  he  had  been  clearly  wrong,  viz.,  joining 
the  young  men  in  Hanover  in  their  raid  on  the 


240          AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

farmer's  beehive.  "  My  giving  countenance  to  an 
open  breach  of  the  laws  of  the  land  in  the  case  of 
the  bees  was  a  matter  in  which  I  was  justly  re 
prehensible  ;  but  that  matter  is  now  past.  I  must 
take  things  as  they  are,  and  under  these  circum 
stances  do  the  best  I  can.  I  know  the  world  will 
blame  me,  but  I  wish  to  justify  my  conduct  to 
myself,  let  the  world  think  what  it  may." 

In  this  endeavor  he  was  highly  successful ;  and 
as  he  walked  on,  his  spirits  rose.  He  contrasted 
his  own  clear  views  with  the  muddled  ideas  of 
his  late  parishioners.  "  They  understand  the  mat 
ter  in  the  gross,  that  I  have  preached  under  a 
fictitious  name  and  character,  and  consequently 
have  roused  many  ideas  in  the  minds  of  the 
people  not  founded  on  fact.  Therefore  they  con 
cluded  from  this  general  view  the  whole  to  be 
founded  on  wrong.  The  name  impostor  is  there 
fore  easily  fixed  on  my  character.  An  impostor, 
we  generally  conceive,  puts  on  feigned  appear 
ances  in  order  to  enrich  or  aggrandize  himself  to 
the  damage  of  others.  That  this  is  not  the  case 
with  me  in  this  transaction,  I  think  is  clear.  That 
I  have  aimed  at  nothing  but  the  bare  necessaries 
of  life,  is  a  fact." 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF          241 

Having  thus  cleared  himself  of  the  charge  of 
imposture,  he  determined  to  rest  his  case  on  the 
broad  ground  of  religious  liberty.  "  That  I  have 
a  good  and  equitable  right  to  preach,  if  I  choose 
and  others  choose  to  hear  me,  is  a  truth  of  which 
I  entertain  no  doubt." 

When  he  was  pursued  into  the  borders  of  the 
town  of  Rutland,  it  was  too  much  for  his  patience. 
"  I  turned  and  ran  about  twenty  rods  down  a 
small  hill,  and  the  Pelhamites  all  after  me,  halloo 
ing  with  all  their  might,  '  Stop  him  !  stop  him  ! ' 
To  be  pursued  like  a  thief,  an  object  of  universal 
speculation  to  the  inhabitants  of  Rutland,  gave  me 
very  disagreeable  sensations,  which  I  determined 
not  to  bear.  I  therefore  stopped,  took  up  a  stone, 
and  declared  that  the  first  who  should  approach 
me  I  would  kill  on  the  spot.  To  hear  such  lan 
guage  and  to  see  such  a  state  of  determined  de 
fiance  in  one  whom  they  had  lately  reverenced 
as  a  clergyman  struck  even  the  people  of  Pelham 
with  astonishment  and  fear." 

By  the  way,  there  follows  a  scene  which  makes 
us  suspect  that  parts  of  Massachusetts  in  the  good 
old  days  may  have  had  a  touch  of  "  the  wild 
West."  The  two  deacons  who  were  leaders  of  the 


242          AS   HE   SEES    HIMSELF 

mob  drew  attention  to  the  fact  that  besides  hav- 
ing  come  to  them  under  false  pretenses  Burroughs 
had  absconded  with  five  dollars  that  had  been  ad 
vanced  on  his  salary.  He  owed  them  one  sermon 
which  was  theirs  of  right.  In  the  present  excited 
state  of  public  opinion  it  was  obviously  impos 
sible  for  Burroughs  to  deliver  the  sermon,  but  it 
was  suggested  that  he  might  give  an  equiva 
lent.  A  peacemaker  intervened,  saying,  "  Wood 
keeps  an  excellent  tavern  hard  by;  I  propose 
for  all  to  move  up  there."  This  proposal  was 
accepted  by  all.  "  I  therefore  came  down,  and  we 
all  went  up  towards  the  tavern.  I  called  for  drink, 
according  to  the  orator's  advice,  to  the  satisfac 
tion  of  all." 

After  that  the  career  of  Burroughs  went  on 
from  bad  to  worse,  but  never  was  he  without  the 
inner  consolations  that  belong  to  those  who  are 
misunderstood  by  the  world.  Even  when  he  un 
successfully  sought  to  set  fire  to  the  jail  he  was 
full  of  fine  sentiments  borrowed  from  Young's 
"Night  Thoughts."  He  quotes  the  whole  passage 
beginning 

Night,  sable  goddess  !  from  her  ebon  throne. 

This  he  seems  to  consider  to  be  in  some  way  a 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF         243 

justification  for  his  action.  He  is  ever  of  the 
opinion  that  a  man's  heart  can  not  be  wrong  so 
long  as  he  is  able  to  quote  poetry. 

The  various  incarcerations  to  which  he  was 
subjected  might  only  have  imbittered  a  less  mag 
nanimous  mind.  They  rather  instilled  into  Bur 
roughs  a  missionary  spirit.  He  felt  that  he  ought 
to  take  more  pains  to  enlighten  the  ignorance  of 
the  world  in  regard  to  his  excellent  qualities.  "  I 
have  many  times  lamented  my  want  of  patient 
perseverance  in  endeavoring  to  convince  my  per 
secutors  of  their  wrong  by  the  cool  dictates  of 
reason.  Error  once  seen  ought  to  be  corrected. 
The  pruning  hook  should  never  be  laid  aside; 
then  we  should  live  up  to  the  condition  of  our 
nature,  which  requires  a  state  of  improving  and 
progressing  in  knowledge  till  time  shall  cease." 

But  even  Burroughs  was  human.  It  is  easier 
to  bear  great  misfortunes  than  to  meet  the  petty 
annoyances  of  every-day  life.  To  one  who  plans 
his  life  in  such  a  way  as  to  depend  largely  on  the 
casual  gifts  of  strangers,  their  dilatoriness  is  often 
a  cause  of  real  anxiety. 

Here  is  a  painful  incident  which  happened  to 
him  in  Philadelphia.  He  applied  to  a  member  of 


244          AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

Congress  for  a  small  sum  of  money.  The  gentle 
man  was  not  all  that  he  should  have  been.  "  The 
most  striking  features  of  his  character  were  his 
great  fondness  for  close  metaphysical  reasoning 
and  a  habit  of  great  economy  in  his  domestic 
concerns,  and  he  had  so  long  practiced  upon  this 
system  that  any  variation  from  it  in  a  person's 
conduct  or  any  want  of  success  in  a  person's 
undertakings  were,  in  his  view,  perfectly  wrong. 
This  was  the  man  to  whom  I  applied  as  my  ulti 
matum." 

We  can  see  at  a  glance  that  such  a  man  was 
likely  to  be  disappointing. 

"I  described  my  circumstances  to  him  in  as  clear 
terms  as  possible,  and  afterwards  told  him  of  the 
request  I  wished  to  make.  Without  giving  me  an 
answer  either  in  the  affirmative  or  the  negative, 
he  went  on  with  a  lengthy  discourse  to  prove  that 
my  system  of  economy  had  been  wrong,  drawing 
a  comparison  between  his  prosperity  and  my  ad 
versity,  and  then  pointed  out  a  certain  line  of  con 
duct  that  I  ought  then  to  take  up  and  observe, 
and  offered  to  assist  me  in  prosecuting  such ;  but 
as  his  plan  had  many  things  in  it  which  I  could 
not  reconcile  my  mind  to,  I  took  the  liberty  of 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF         245 

reasoning  with  him  upon  a  better  plan  which  I 
had  marked  out  in  my  own  mind." 

Upon  this,  the  congressman  became  obstinate 
and  would  do  nothing.  His  depravity  came  to 
Burroughs  as  a  sudden  shock. 

"  When  I  took  a  view  of  the  world,  of  the  pomp 
and  splendor  which  surrounded  crowds  which 
perpetually  passed  before  my  eyes,  to  see  them 
roll  in  affluence  and  luxury,  inhabiting  lofty 
houses,  with  superb  equipages,  and  feasting  upon 
all  the  delicacies  of  life,  under  these  affluent  cir 
cumstances  withholding  from  me  what  would 
never  have  been  missed  from  their  superfluity, 
this  brought  to  my  mind  a  train  of  ideas  that  were 
desperate  and  horrid.  .  .  .  My  eyes  lighted  up 
with  indignation,  my  countenance  was  fortified 
with  despair,  my  heart  was  swollen  to  that  bigness 
which  was  almost  too  large  for  my  breast  to  con 
tain.  Under  this  situation  I  arose  with  a  tranquil 
horror,  composedly  took  my  hat,  and  politely  bid 
Mr.  Niles  farewell.  I  believe  the  desperate  emo 
tions  of  my  heart  were  apparently  manifested  to 
his  view  by  my  countenance ;  his  apparent  im 
movability  relaxed,  he  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket, 
and  handed  me  three  dollars.  This  act  of  kind- 


246        AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

ness  in  a  moment  melted  the  ferocious  feelings  of 
my  heart,  all  those  desperate  sensations  vanished, 
and  I  found  myself  a  man." 

Dear  reader,  have  you  not  often  taken  a  part 
in  such  a  scene  *?  When  instead  of  handing  out 
your  dollars  at  once  you  conditioned  them  upon 
adherence  to  some  "  line  of  conduct,"  —  your  con 
science  accuses  you  that  you  might  have  pointed 
even  to  the  buck-saw,  —  do  you  realize  what  a 
pitiful  spectacle  you  made  of  yourself? 

Stephen  Burroughs  does  not  at  all  fulfill  our 
preconceived  notion  of  an  habitual  criminal.  He 
did  not  love  evil  for  its  own  sake.  His  crimes 
were  incidental,  and  he  mentions  them  only  as  the 
unfortunate  results  of  circumstances  beyond  his 
own  control.  His  life  was  rather  spent  in  the  con 
templation  of  virtue.  There  were  some  virtues 
which  came  easy  to  him,  and  he  made  the  most 
of  them.  Like  an  expert  prestidigitator,  he  kept 
the  attention  fixed  on  what  was  irrelevant,  so  that 
what  was  really  going  on  passed  unnoticed.  He 
had  eliminated  personal  responsibility  from  his 
scheme  of  things,  and  then  proceeded  as  if  nothing 
were  lacking.  He  had  one  invariable  measure  for 


AS   HE   SEES   HIMSELF         247 

right  and  wrong.  That  was  right  which  minis 
tered  to  his  own  peace  of  body  and  of  mind ;  that 
was  wrong  which  did  otherwise. 

We  are  coming  to  see  that  that  imperturb 
able  egotism  is  the  characteristic  of  the  "  criminal 
mind  "  that  is  least  susceptible  to  treatment.  Sins 
of  passion  are  often  repented  of  as  soon  as  they 
are  committed.  Sins  of  ignorance  are  cured  by 
letting  in  the  light.  Sins  of  weakness  yield  to  an 
improved  environment.  But  what  are  you  going 
to  do  with  the  man  who  is  incapable  of  seeing 
that  he  is  in  the  wrong  ?  Treat  him  with  com 
passion,  and  he  accepts  the  kindness  as  a  tribute 
to  his  own  merits ;  attempt  to  punish  him,  and  he 
is  a  martyr ;  reason  with  him,  and  his  controversial 
ardor  is  aroused  in  defense  of  his  favorite  thesis. 

Sometimes  the  lover  of  humanity,  after  he  has 
tried  everything  which  he  can  think  of  to  make 
an  impression  on  such  a  character  and  to  bring 
him  to  a  realizing  sense  of  social  responsibility, 
becomes  utterly  discouraged.  He  feels  tempted 
to  give  up  trying  any  longer.  In  this  he  is  wrong. 
He  should  not  allow  himself  to  be  discouraged. 
Something  must  be  done,  even  though  nobody 
knows  what  it  is. 


248          AS    HE   SEES   HIMSELF 

But  if  the  lover  of  humanity  should  give  up  for 
a  time  and  take  a  rest  by  turning  his  attention  to 
a  more  hopeful  case,  I  should  not  be  too  hard  on 
him.  My  Pardoner,  I  am  sure,  must  have  some 
indulgence  for  such  a  weakness. 


A  MAN   UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 
<•*** 

I    SAT   down  by  the   wayside   of  life   like   a 
man  under  enchantment."  So  Nathaniel  Haw 
thorne  wrote  of  his  own  visionary  youth,  and, 
truth  to  tell,  the  spell  lasted  through  life. 

The  wayside  itself  was  not  conducive  to  dreams. 
It  was  a  busy  thoroughfare.  Eager  traffickers  jos 
tled  one  another,  and  there  was  much  crying  up 
of  new  wares.  Many  important  personages  went 
noisily  along.  There  was  a  fresh  interest  in  all  sorts 
of  good  works  and  many  improvements  on  the 
roadway.  There  were  not  many  priests  or  Levites 
passing  by  on  the  other  side,  for  ecclesiasticism  was 
not  in  fashion,  but  there  were  multitudes  of  Good 
Samaritans,  each  one  intent  on  his  own  brand-new 
device  for  universal  helpfulness.  There  were  so 
many  of  them  that  the  poor  man  who  fell  among 
philanthropists  often  sighed  for  the  tender  mercies 
of  the  thieves.  The  thieves,  at  least,  when  they 
had  done  their  work  would  let  him  alone.  From 


250    A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

time  to  time  there  would  come  groups  of  eager 
reformers,  advance  agents  of  the  millennium.  At 
last  there  came  down  the  road  troops  hurrying 
to  the  front,  and  there  was  the  distant  sound  of 
battle. 

It  was  a  stirring  time,  the  noon  of  the  nine 
teenth  century;  and  the  stir  was  nowhere  more 
felt  than  in  New  England.  It  was  a  ferment  of 
speculation,  a  whirl  of  passion,  a  time  of  great 
aspiration  and  of  no  mean  achievement. 

But  if  you  would  get  a  sense  of  all  this,  do  not 
turn  to  the  pages  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  The 
ardor  of  Transcendentalism,  the  new  spirit  of 
reform,  the  war  between  the  States,  —  these  were 
noted,  but  they  made  no  very  vivid  impression  on 
the  man  who  sat  under  enchantment.  There  was 
an  interval  between  these  happenings  and  his 
consciousness  that  made  them  seem  scarcely  con 
temporaneous. 

It  is  a  fashion  in  literary  criticism  to  explain 
an  author  by  his  environment.  With  Hawthorne 
this  method  is  not  successful.  It  is  not  that  his 
environment  was  not  interesting  in  itself.  His 
genius  was  essentially  aloof.  It  was  a  plant  that 
drew  its  nourishment  from  the  air  rather  than  from 


A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT    251 

the  soil  There  are  some  men  who  have  the  happy 
faculty  of  making  themselves  at  home  wherever 
they  happen  to  be.  Hawthorne,  wherever  he  had 
been  born,  would  have  looked  upon  the  scene 
with  something  of  a  stranger's  eye.  Indeed,  when 
we  think  about  it,  the  wonder  is  that  most  of  us 
are  able  to  take  the  world  in  such  a  matter-of-fact 
way.  One  would  suppose  that  we  had  always  been 
here,  instead  of  being  transient  guests  who  cannot 
even  engage  our  rooms  a  day  in  advance. 

It  is  perhaps  a  happy  limitation  which  makes 
us  to  forget  our  slight  tenure,  and  to  feel  an  abso 
lute  ownership  in  the  present  moment.  We  are 
satisfied  with  the  passing  experience  because  it 
appears  to  us  as  permanent. 

To  the  man  who  sat  by  the  wayside  the  present 
moment  did  not  stand  in  the  sunshine  sufficient 
unto  itself.  It  did  not  appear,  as  it  did  to  the  man 
of  affairs,  an  ultimate  and  satisfying  reality.  He 
was  not  unobservant.  He  saw  the  persons  passing 
by.  But  each  one,  in  the  present  moment,  seemed 
but  a  fugitive  escaping  from  the  past  into  the 
future.  Futile  flight !  unavailing  freedom  !  for  in 
the  Future  the  Past  stands  waiting  for  it.  As  he 
looked  at  each  successive  action  it  was  as  one  who 


252    A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

watches  the  moving  shadow  of  an  old  deed,  which 
now  for  some  creature  has  become  doom. 

Did  I  say  that  Hawthorne  was  little  influenced 
by  his  environment  ?  It  would  be  truer  to  say 
that  the  environment  to  which  he  responded  was 
that  to  which  most  men  are  so  strangely  oblivious. 
He  felt  what  another  Salem  mystic  has  expressed  : 

Around  us  ever  lies  the  enchanted  land 

In  marvels  rich  to  thine  own  sons  displayed. 

The  true-born  Yankee  has  always  persisted,  in 
spite  of  the  purists,  in  using  "  I  guess  "  as  equiva 
lent  to  "  I  think."  To  his  shrewd  good-humored 
curiosity,  all  thinking  resolves  itself  into  a  kind 
of  guesswork ;  and  one  man  has  as  good  a  right 
to  his  guess  as  another. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  talk  of  the  village  store 
to  Emerson  and  Hawthorne,  but  to  these  New 
Englanders  thinking  was  still  a  kind  of  guessing. 
The  observer  looks  at  the  outward  show  of  things, 
which  has  such  an  air  of  finality,  and  says,  "  I 
guess  there 's  something  behind  all  this.  I  guess 
it 's  worth  while  to  look  into  it." 

Such  a  mind  is  not  deterred  by  the  warnings 
of  formal  logic  that  there  is  "  no  thoroughfare." 
When  it  leaves  the  public  road  and  sees  the  sign 


A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT    253 

"  Private  way,  dangerous  passing,"  it  says,  "  that 
looks  interesting.  I  guess  I  '11  take  that." 

And  from  our  streets  and  shops  and  news 
papers,  from  our  laboratories  and  lecture  rooms 
and  bureaus  of  statistics,  it  is,  after  all,  such  a 
little  way  to  the  border-land  of  mystery,  where  all 
minds  are  on  an  equality  and  where  the  wisest 
can  but  dimly  guess  the  riddles  that  are  pro 
pounded. 

Hawthorne  belonged  to  no  school  or  party. 
To  the  men  of  his  generation  he  was  like  the 
minister  of  whom  he  writes  who  preached  with 
a  veil  over  his  face. 

Nor  is  his  relation  in  thought  to  his  ancestry 
more  intimate  than  that  to  his  contemporaries. 
Born  to  the  family  of  New  England  Puritanism, 
we  think  we  recognize  the  family  likeness  —  and 
yet  we  are  not  quite  sure.  There  are  traits  that 
suggest  a  spiritual  changeling. 

When  we  enter  into  the  realm  of  Hawthorne's 
imagination  we  are  conscious  of  sombre  realities. 

Is  not  this  a  survival  of  the  puritanic  spirit, 
with  its  brooding  mysticism,  its  retributive  pre 
destination,  its  sense  of  the  judgment  to  come  ? 
It  was  said  of  Carlyle  that  he  was  a  Calvinist  who 


254   A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

had  lost  his  creed.  May  not  the  same  be  said  of 
Hawthorne  ?  The  old  New  England  theology 
had  in  him  become  attenuated  to  a  mere  film,  but 
through  it  all  may  we  not  see  the  old  New  Eng 
land  conscience  ? 

Doubtless  there  is  much  of  this  transmitted 
influence.  Hawthorne  himself  insisted  upon  it. 
Speaking  of  "  the  stern  and  black-browed  Puri 
tan  ancestors,"  he  said,  "Let  them  scorn  me  as  they 
will,  strong  traits  of  their  nature  have  intertwined 
themselves  with  mine." 

But  it  is  possible  to  exaggerate  such  likenesses. 
In  Hawthorne's  case  there  is  danger  of  argument 
in  a  circle.  We  say  that  there  is  something  in 
Hawthorne's  imagination,  in  its  sombre  mysti 
cism,  in  its  brooding  sense  of  destiny,  which  is 
like  that  of  the  spirit  of  the  inhabitants  of  Salem 
and  Boston  in  the  old  days  when  they  walked 
through  the  narrow  streets  and  through  the  shad 
owy  woodland  ways  pondering  the  fatal  sequences 
of  life. 

But  how  do  we  see  these  old  Puritans  ?  We 
see  them  through  Hawthorne's  eyes.  His  imagi 
nation  peoples  for  us  the  old  houses.  Was  Haw 
thorne's  genius  tinged  with  Puritanism,  or  are  our 


A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT    255 

conceptions  of  the  Puritan  character  largely  Haw- 
thornesque?  It  is  not  necessary  to  argue  this 
matter ;  it  might  be  better  to  answer  "  Yes  "  to 
both  questions. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  a  creative  genius  to  im 
print  his  own  features  upon  his  forbears.  It  is  dif 
ficult  here  to  determine  which  is  cause  and  which 
is  effect.  How  marvelously  Rembrandt  gets  the 
spirit  of  the  Dutch  Burgomeisters !  It  was  for 
tunate  for  him  that  he  had  such  subjects,  —  stal 
wart  men  with  faces  that  caught  the  light  so 
marvelously.  Yes,  but  had  it  not  been  for 
Rembrandt,  who  would  have  told  us  that  these 
Dutch  gentlemen  were  so  picturesque  *? 

The  subject  of  a  good  artist  is  accurately  fig 
ured  ;  the  subject  of  a  great  artist  is  transfigured. 
We  cannot  separate  the  historic  reality  from  the 
transfiguring  light. 

But  however  Hawthorne  may  have  been  influ 
enced  by  his  Puritan  inheritance,  it  would  be  hard 
to  find  one  whose  habitual  point  of  view  was  fur 
ther  removed  from  what  we  are  accustomed  to 
call  the  "New  England  conscience."  It  is  the 
characteristic  of  that  type  of  conscience  that  it 
has  an  ever-present  and  sometimes  oppressive 


256    A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

sense  of  personal  responsibility.  It  is  militant 
and  practical  rather  than  mystical.  To  it  evil  is 
not  something  to  be  endured  but  something  to  be 
resisted.  If  there  is  a  wrong  it  must  be  righted, 
and  with  as  little  delay  as  possible. 

The  highest  praise  a  Puritan  could  give  his 
pastor  was  that  he  was  "  a  painful  preacher." 
Jonathan  Mitchell,  writing  of  the  beginnings  of 
the  church  in  Cambridge,  says  that  the  people 
of  Cambridge  "  were  a  gracious,  savory-spirited 
people,  principled  by  Mr.  Sheperd,  liking  an 
humbling,  heart-breaking  ministry  and  spirit." 

The  Puritan  theology  was  based  on  predesti 
nation,  but  the  Puritan  temper  was  not  fatalistic. 
When  that  latter-day  Puritan,  Lyman  Beecher, 
was  expounding  the  doctrines  of  the  divine  de 
crees,  one  of  his  sons  asked  him,  "  Father,  what 
if  we  are  decreed  to  be  lost  ?  "  The  answer  was, 
"  Fight  the  decrees,  my  boy !  " 

The  Calvinistic  spirit  was  exactly  opposite  to 
the  fatalistic  acquiescence  which  shifts  the  respon 
sibility  from  the  creature  to  the  Creator.  To  be 
sure  the  fall  of  man  took  place  a  long  time  ago, 
but  we  cannot  say  that  it  was  none  of  our  busi 
ness.  It  was  not  an  hereditary  misfortune  to  be 


A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT    257 

borne  with  fortitude ;  it  was  to  be  assumed  as  our 
personal  guilt.  "  Original  sin "  means  real  sin. 
Adam  sinned  as  the  typical  and  representative 
man,  and  every  man  became  a  sinner.  No  indi 
vidual  could  plead  an  alibi.  The  "  conviction  of 
sin  "  was  not  the  acquiescence  in  a  penalty,  —  it 
was  the  heartbreaking  consciousness  of  the  "  ex 
ceeding  sinfulness  of  sin." 

"  In  Adam's  fall  we  sinned  all."  When  they 
said  that,  they  were  thinking  not  of  Adam,  but  of 
themselves.  They  did  it ;  it  was  the  guilt  that  was 
imputed  to  them.  Sensitive  consciences  were  tor 
tured  in  the  attempt  fully  to  realize  their  guilt. 

The  real  inheritors  of  this  type  of  conscience 
were  to  be  found  among  many  of  the  radical 
reformers  and  agitators  who  were  Hawthorne's 
contemporaries  and  with  whom  he  had  little  in 
common.  When  their  formal  creed  had  fallen 
off,  there  remained  the  sense  of  personal  guilt  for 
original  sin.  The  sin  of  the  nation  and  of  the 
whole  social  order  weighed  heavily  upon  them 
and  tortured  them,  and  they  found  relief  only  in 
action. 

All  this  was  foreign  to  Hawthorne's  mind.  In 
his  treatment  of  sin  there  is  always  a  sense  of 


258    A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

moral  detachment.  We  are  not  made  to  see,  as 
George  Eliot  makes  us  see,  the  struggle  with  temp 
tation, —  the  soul,  like  a  wild  thing,  seeing  the 
tempting  bait  and  drawing  nearer  to  the  trap. 
Hawthorne  begins  after  the  deed  is  done.  He 
shows  us  the 

wild  thing  taken  in  a  trap 
Which  sees  the  trapper  coming  thro'  the  wood. 

Of  what  is  the  trap  made  *?  It  is  made  of  a  deed 
already  done.  Whence  comes  the  ghostly  trapper  *? 
He  is  no  stranger  in  the  wood.  There  is  no  stay 
ing  his  advance  as  he  makes  his  fatal  rounds. 

In  the  preface  to  the  "  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables"  the  author  gives  the  argument  of  the 
story,  —  "the  truth,  namely,  that  the  wrong-doing 
of  one  generation  lives  into  the  successive  ones, 
and,  divesting  itself  of  every  temporary  advan 
tage,  becomes  a  pure  and  uncontrollable  mis 
chief." 

This  is  the  theme  of  the  Greek  tragedy  — 
Nemesis.  The  deed  is  done  and  cannot  be  un 
done;  the  inevitable  consequences  must  be  en 
dured. 

In  the  "  Scarlet  Letter,"  when  Hester  and  Roger 
Chillingworth  review  the  past  and  peer  into  the 


A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT    259 

future,  Hester  says,  "I  said  but  now  that  there 
can  be  no  good  event  for  him  or  thee  or  me  who 
are  wandering  together  in  this  gloomy  maze  of 
evil,  and  stumbling  at  every  step  over  the  guilt 
wherewith  we  have  strewn  our  path." 

But  is  the  present  stumbling  guilt  or  is  it 
merely  misery  ?  The  old  man  replies,  "  By  the 
first  slip  awry  thou  didst  plant  the  germ  of  evil, 
but  since  that  moment  it  has  been  a  dark  neces 
sity.  Ye  that  have  wronged  me  are  not  sinful, 
save  in  a  kind  of  typical  illusion,  neither  am  I 
fiend-like  who  have  snatched  a  fiend's  office  from 
his  hands.  It  is  our  fate.  Let  the  black  flower 
blossom  as  it  may." 

Strange  words  to  come  from  one  who  had  sat 
in  a  Puritan  meeting-house  !  It  is  such  comment 
as  the  Greek  Chorus  might  make  watching  the 
unfolding  of  the  doom  of  the  house  of  Agamem 
non.  And  when  the  tale  of  the  "Scarlet  Letter" 
has  been  told,  how  does  the  author  himself  look 
upon  it?  How  does  he  distribute  praise  and 
blame  « 

"  To  all  these  shadowy  beings  so  long  our  near 
acquaintances  —  as  well  Roger  Chillingworth  as 
his  companions  —  we  would  fain  be  merciful.  It 


26o   A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

is  a  curious  subject  of  observation  and  inquiry 
whether  love  and  hatred  be  not  the  same  thing  at 
bottom.  Each  in  its  utmost  development  sup 
poses  a  high  degree  of  intimacy  and  heart-know 
ledge  ;  each  renders  one  individual  dependent  for 
his  spiritual  life  on  another ;  each  leaves  the  pas 
sionate  lover  or  the  no  less  passionate  hater  for 
lorn  and  desolate  by  the  withdrawal  of  its  subject. 
Philosophically  considered,  therefore,  the  passions 
seem  essentially  the  same  except  that  one  happens 
to  be  seen  in  celestial  radiance  and  the  other  in  a 
dusky  lurid  glow."  This  is  not  the  Puritan  Con 
science  uttering  itself.  It  is  an  illusive  and  ques 
tioning  spirit. 

If  in  his  attitude  toward  human  destiny  Haw 
thorne  was  in  some  essential  respects  un-Puritan, 
so  also  was  he  un-modern.  There  is  a  character 
istic  difference  between  antique  and  modern  sym 
bols  for  those  necessary  processes,  beyond  the 
sphere  of  our  own  wills,  by  which  our  lives  are 
determined.  The  ancients  pictured  it  with  austere 
simplicity.  Life  is  a  simple  thread.  The  Fates 
spin  it.  It  is  drawn  out  on  the  distaff  and  cut 
off  by  the  fatal  shears. 

Compare  this  with  the  phrase  Carlyle  loved  to 


A  MAN   UNDER  ENCHANTMENT    261 

quote,  "  the  roaring  loom  of  Time."  Life  is  not  a 
spinning-wheel,  but  a  loom.  A  million  shuttles 
fly  ;  a  million  threads  are  inextricably  interwoven. 
You  cannot  long  trace  the  single  thread:  you 
can  discern  only  the  growing  pattern.  There  is 
inevitable  causation,  but  it  is  not  simple  but  com 
plex.  The  situation  at  the  present  moment  is  the 
result  not  of  one  cause  but  of  innumerable  causes, 
and  it  is  in  turn  the  cause  of  results  that  are 
equally  incalculable.  We  are  a  part  of 

the  web  of  being  blindly  wove 
By  man  and  beast  and  air  and  sea. 

Men  of  science  show  us  how  the  whole  acts  upon 
each  part  and  each  part  acts  upon  the  whole. 
Modern  novelists  attempt,  not  always  success 
fully,  to  give  the  impression  of  the  amazing  com 
plexity  of  actual  life,  where  all  sorts  of  things  are 
going  on  at  the  same  time. 

Whether  we  look  upon  it  as  his  limitation  or 
as  his  good  fortune,  Hawthorne  adhered  to  the 
spinning-wheel  rather  than  the  loom.  We  see  the 
antique  Fates  drawing  out  the  thread.  A  long 
series  of  events  follow  one  another  from  a  single 
cause. 

A  part  of  the  power  of  Hawthorne  over  our 


262    A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

imagination  lies  in  his  singleness  of  purpose.  In 
"The  Marble  Faun"  we  are  told,  "The  stream  of 
Miriam's  trouble  kept  its  way  through  this  flood 
of  human  life,  and  neither  mingled  with  it  nor 
was  turned  aside." 

We  are  made  to  see  the  dark  streams  that  do 
not  mingle  nor  turn  aside,  and  we  watch  their 
fatal  flow. 

But  is  this  real,  normal  life  *?  In  such  life  do 
not  the  streams  mingle  ?  Are  not  evil  influences 
quickly  neutralized,  as  noxious  germs  die  in  the 
sunshine  ?  No  one  would  more  readily  acknow 
ledge  this  than  Hawthorne.  He  says  :  "  It  is  not, 
I  apprehend,  a  healthy  kind  of  mental  occupation 
to  devote  ourselves  too  exclusively  to  the  study 
of  individual  men  and  women.  If  the  person 
under  examination  be  one's  self,  the  result  is 
pretty  certain  to  be  diseased  action  of  the  heart 
almost  before  we  can  snatch  a  second  glance.  Or 
if  we  take  the  freedom  to  put  a  friend  under  the 
microscope,  we  thereby  insulate  him  from  many 
of  his  true  relations,  magnify  his  peculiarities,  in 
evitably  tear  him  into  parts,  and  of  course  patch 
him  clumsily  together  again.  What  wonder,  then, 
that  we  be  frightened  at  such  a  monster,  which, 


A  MAN   UNDER  ENCHANTMENT    263 

after  all  —  though  we  can  point  to  every  feature 
of  his  deformity  in  the  real  personage  —  may  be 
said  to  have  been  created  mainly  by  ourselves." 

The  critic  of  Hawthorne  could  not  describe 
better  the  limitation  of  his  stories  as  pictures 
of  real  life.  His  characters,  however  clearly  con 
ceived,  are  insulated  from  many  of  their  real  rela 
tions,  and  their  peculiarities  are  magnified. 

In  the  preface  to  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  "  he  says 
that  the  tale  "  wears  to  my  eye  a  stern  and  sombre 
aspect,  too  much  ungladdened  by  the  tender  and 
familiar  influences  which  soften  almost  every 
scene  of  Nature  and  real  life,  and  which  undoubt 
edly  should  soften  every  picture  of  them." 

One  who  would  defend  Hawthorne  the  Author 
against  Hawthorne  the  Critic  must  point  out  the 
kind  of  literature  to  which  his  work  belongs. 
When  we  judge  it  by  the  rule  of  the  romance  or 
of  the  realistic  novel,  we  fail  to  do  justice  to  its 
essential  quality.  The  romancer,  the  story-teller 
pure  and  simple,  is  attracted  by  the  swift  sequence 
of  events.  His  nimble  fancy  follows  a  plot  as  a 
kitten  follows  a  string.  Now  it  happens  that  in  a 
world  constituted  as  ours  is  the  sequence  of  events 
follows  a  moral  order.  A  good  story  has  always 


264   A  MAN   UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

in  it  an  element  of  poetic  justice.  But  the  roman 
cer  does  not  tell  his  story  for  the  sake  of  the 
moral.  He  professes  to  be  as  much  surprised 
when  it  is  discovered  as  is  the  most  innocent 
reader.  In  like  manner  the  realistic  novel,  in  pro 
portion  as  it  is  a  faithful  portrayal  of  life,  has  an 
ethical  lesson.  But  the  writer  disclaims  any  pur 
pose  of  teaching  it.  His  business  is  to  tell  what 
the  world  is  like.  He  leaves  the  rest  to  your  in 
telligence. 

But  there  is  another  kind  of  literature;  it  is 
essentially  allegory.  The  allegorist  takes  a  naked 
truth  and  clothes  it  with  the  garments  of  the  im 
agination.  Frequently  the  clothes  do  not  fit  and 
the  poor  truth  wanders  about  awkwardly,  self- 
conscious  to  the  last  degree.  But  if  the  artist  be 
a  genius  the  abstract  thought  becomes  a  person. 

Hawthorne's  work  is  something  more  than  alle 
gory,  but  his  mind  worked  allegorically.  His 
characters  were  abstract  before  they  became  con 
crete.  He  was  not  a  realist  aiming  to  give  a  com 
prehensive  survey  of  the  actual  world.  He  con 
sciously  selected  the  incidents  and  scenes  which 
would  illustrate  his  theme. 

In  his  conclusion  of"  The  Marble  Faun,"  when 


A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT    265 

the  actors  have  withdrawn,  the  Author  comes 
before  the  curtain  and  says  that  he  designed  "  the 
story  and  the  characters  to  bear,  of  course,  a  cer 
tain  relation  to  human  nature  and  human  life,  but 
still  to  be  so  artfully  and  airily  removed  from  our 
mundane  sphere  that  some  laws  and  proprieties 
of  their  own  should  be  implicitly  and  insensibly 
acknowledged.  The  idea  of  the  modern  Faun,  for 
example,  loses  all  the  poetry  and  beauty  which  the 
Author  fancied  in  it  and  becomes  nothing  better 
than  a  grotesque  absurdity  if  we  bring  it  into  the 
actual  light  of  day."  This  is  not  realism. 

It  is  a  mood  in  which  the  bounds  between  ro 
mance  and  allegory  fade  away;  persons  become 
symbols  and  symbols  have  breathed  into  them  the 
breath  of  life.  The  story  and  the  truth  it  shadows 
are  one. 

The  mood  is  common  in  poetry.  Poets  like 
Dante  and  Spenser  and  Shelley  from  it  have  given 

Wise  and  lovely  songs 
Of  fate  and  God  and  chance  and  chaos  old, 
And  love. 

There  is  a  point  where  "  dreams  begin  to  feel 
the  truth  and  stir  of  day,"  where  the  incidents  of 
existence  assume  a  dream-like  character,  and  where 


266    A  MAN  UNDER  ENCHANTMENT 

dreams  become  transparent  symbols  of  reality. 
There  are  moods  in  which  our  familiar  world 
seems  strange  to  us,  and  we  walk  in  it  as  on  some 
bewildered  shore. 

In  such  moods  to  meet  Hawthorne  is  a  great 
experience.  He  is  no  longer  shy  and  aloof,  but 
he  opens  to  us  his  heart,  and  with  friendly  zeal 
points  out  each  object  of  interest  —  for  in  this 
border-land  he  is  at  home. 


THE  CRUELTY   OF  GOOD  PEOPLE 


^  |^HE  cruelty  of  bad  people  is  easily  explained. 
JL  They  are  cruel  because  they  enjoy  watch 
ing  the  pain  of  others.  There  are  also  the  igno 
rant  and  half-formed,  to  whom  the  word  "inhu 
manity  "  applies  literally.  They  have  not  yet  been 
really  humanized.  Before  they  can  habitually  yield 
to  feelings  of  compassion  there  is  much  to  be  done 
in  developing  their  higher  natures.  They  must  be 
urged  to 

Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast, 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die. 

The  beast  has  a  long  start,  and  the  ape  and  tiger 
die  hard. 

But  this  is  only  half  the  story.  We  are  contin 
ually  surprised  at  the  cruelty  that  is  possible  in 
those  in  whom  there  seems  to  be  no  tigerish  sur 
vival.  It  is  intimately  associated  with  the  higher 
rather  than  with  the  lower  part  of  the  nature.  It 
is  spiritual,  rational,  and  moral.  The  cruelty  of 


268     CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE 

women  and  priests  is  proverbial  —  and  they  are 
good  women  and  good  priests. 

Listen  to  the  talk  in  a  drawing-room  when  some 
question  involving  the  fate  of  thousands  is  intro 
duced.  There  is  a  strike  or  lock-out.  It  means  that 
the  hostile  parties  are  struggling  on  a  narrow  ledge 
between  two  precipices.  The  workmen  are  trying 
to  push  the  employers  into  the  abyss  of  bank 
ruptcy;  the  employers  are  exerting  every  means 
in  their  power  to  hurl  their  antagonists  into  the 
abyss  of  starvation.  It  is  a  battle  to  the  death,  anc 
in  many  a  home  pale-faced  women  are  watching 
it  with  despairing  eyes.  But  what  says  my  lady 
who  likes  to  talk  about  current  events  ?  It  is 
evident  when  she  begins  to  speak  that  she  is  not 
touched  by  the  tragedy  of  it  all.  Nero  watching 
the  burning  of  Rome  could  not  assume  an  air  of 
more  complete  detachment.  She  talks  as  if  it  were 
nothing  to  her.  Or  the  talk  turns  to  the  affairs  of 
state.  Issues  that  involve  the  fate  of  nations  awake 
in  her  only  a  languid  curiosity.  The  diplomacy 
of  prudent  statesmen  who  are  endeavoring  to 
keep  the  peace  strikes  her  as  mere  dilly-dallying. 
She  wants  to  see  something  doing.  She  enjoys  a 
romantic  sensation,  and  urges  on  those  who  would 


CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE     269 

give  her  this  pleasure.  Was  there  ever  a  useless 
war  without  fair  faces  looking  down  upon  it  ap 
provingly  —  at  least  at  the  beginning  *? 

I  saw  pale  kings,  and  princes  too, 

Pale  warriors,  death  pale  were  they  all; 

They  cried,  "  La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci 
Hath  thee  in  thrall." 

Yet  she  who  in  regard  to  the  great  affairs  which 
involve  millions  may  appear  as  "  La  Belle  Dame 
sans  Merci  "  may  be  to  all  those  whom  she  knows 
a  minister  of  purest  kindness.  It  is  only  towards 
those  whom  she  does  not  know  that  she  is  piti 
less. 

Philosophers  are  usually  cruel  in  their  judg 
ments  of  the  persons  and  events  of  the  passing 
day,  and  that  is  perhaps  the  reason  why  no  nation 
has  been  willing  to  take  the  hint  from  Plato  and 
allow  the  philosophers  to  rule.  It  would  be  too 
harsh  a  despotism.  Flesh  and  blood  could  not 
endure  it.  For  the  philosopher  is  concerned  with 
general  laws  and  is  intolerant  of  exceptions, 
while  it  is  the  quality  of  mercy  to  treat  each  per 
son  as  in  some  degree  an  exception.  Fancy  the 
misery  that  would  be  involved  in  the  attempt  to 


270    CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE 

level  us  all  up  to  the  cold  heights  of  abstract 
virtue  on  which  Spinoza  dwelt.  One  shudders 
to  think  of  the  calamity  that  would  ensue  were 
all  our  lawmakers  to  be  suddenly  Hegelianized. 
All  the  attempts  to  alleviate  the  hard  conditions 
under  which  people  are  living  would  cease.  The 
energy  that  is  now  spent  in  trying  to  abolish 
abuses  would  then  be  directed  toward  explaining 
them.  What  wailings  would  go  up  from  earth's 
millions  on  the  proclamation  of  the  rule  of  un 
limited  Spencerianism!  We  should  look  back 
with  envy  to  the  good  old  times  of  Nero  and 
Tamerlane. 

As  the  Inquisition  handed  its  victims  over  to  the 
secular  arm  and  disclaimed  all  further  responsi 
bility,  so  this  new  tyrant  would  hand  over  all  the 
unfit  to  the  unobstructed  working  of  natural 
law.  No  attention  would  be  paid  to  our  senti 
mental  preferences  for  particular  persons.  Those 
merciful  interferences  which  have  been  the  con 
trivance  of  mankind  for  the  protection  of  weak 
ness  must  be  swept  aside.  The  unfit  must  take 
the  full  penalty  justly  visited  on  their  unfitness. 
The  moment  we  begin  to  particularize  we  rebel. 
Pity  revolts  against  a  too  cold  philosophy. 


CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE     271 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  theologians  have 
often  attained  refinements  of  cruelty  unknown 
even  to  the  most  severely  logical  of  the  secular 
philosophers.  They  have  been  able  to  distill  out 
of  the  purest  religious  affections  a  poison  capable 
of  producing  in  the  sensitive  soul  unutterable 
agony.  Then  they  have  watched  the  writhing  of 
the  victim  with  a  cold  benevolence.  The  worst 
of  it  was  that  the  benevolence  was  real  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  it  froze  all  the  fountains  of 
natural  pity. 

Jonathan  Edwards  was  not  merely  a  good  man 
in  the  ordinary  sense.  His  goodness  rose  into  ideal 
heights.  He  had  a  genius  for  ethics  as  well  as  for 
religion.  He  is  still  a  teacher  of  teachers.  But 
this  wonderful  man,  who  must  ever  have  a  high 
place  among  the  leaders  and  inspirers  of  mankind, 
has  an  equally  high  place  among  the  torturers  of 
the  spirit.  To  understand  the  kind  of  pain  which 
he  inflicted  we  must  not  be  content  with  the 
threatenings  of  torment  in  sermons  like  that  on 
"  Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God."  The 
pictorial  imagery  which  now  startles  us  was 
common  enough  in  his  day.  The  torments  of 
sinners  was  an  ordinary  theme ;  Edwards  added 


272     CRUELTY  OF  GOOD  PEOPLE 

appreciably  to  the  torments  of  the  saints.  His 
vivisection  of  the  human  soul  was  without  com 
punction.  In  the  hearts  and  desires  of  the  inno 
cent  he  discovered  guilt  for  which  there  was  no 
pardon.  Every  resting-place  for  natural  human 
affection  was  torn  away,  and  when  at  last  from 
the  clear  heaven  the  love  of  God  shone  down  in 
dazzling  splendor,  it  shone  upon  a  desert. 

The  cruelty  of  it  all  is  seen  in  its  effects  on 
minds  naturally  prone  to  melancholy.  Read  the 
journal  of  a  disciple  of  Edwards,  David  Brainerd, 
and  remember  that  for  several  generations  that 
journal  was  esteemed  a  proper  book  to  put  into 
the  hands  of  youth.  The  editor  of  the  Journal 
says,  "  As  an  example  of  a  mind  tremulously  ap 
prehensive  of  sin,  loathing  it  in  every  form  and 
for  its  own  sake,  avoiding  even  the  appearance 
of  evil,  rising  above  all  terrestrial  considerations, 
advancing  rapidly  in  holiness,  and  rinding  its  only 
enjoyment  in  the  glory  of  God,  probably  no  simi 
lar  work  in  any  language  can  furnish  a  parallel." 
Poor  Brainerd  !  Every  step  along  the  heavenly 
way  cost  him  a  pang.  He  never  could  forget  for 
more  than  a  few  hours  at  a  time  that  he  was  hu 
man,  and  to  be  human  was  to  be  vile.  The  groans 


CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE     273 

follow  one  another  with  monotonous  iteration. 
He  loved  God,  but  he  felt  his  guilt  in  not  loving 
him  more.  He  was  not  only  afraid  of  hell,  but 
of  a  heaven  of  which  he  was  unworthy. 

"  I  seem  to  be  declining  with  respect  to  my 
life  and  warmth  in  divine  things.  I  deserve  hell 
every  day  for  not  loving  my  Lord  more.  ...  I 
saw  myself  very  mean  and  vile,  and  wondered  at 
those  who  showed  me  respect." 

We  all  feel  that  way  sometimes,  but  to  have 
the  feelings  set  down  day  by  day  for  years  at  a 
time  seems  hardly  profitable.  We  are  relieved 
when  occasionally  the  editor  summarizes  the  spir 
itual  conflicts  of  a  week  or  two  without  going 
into  details,  as  in  the  latter  part  of  December, 
1 744.  "  The  next  twelve  days  he  was  for  the 
most  part  extremely  dejected,  discouraged  and 
distressed,  and  was  evidently  much  under  the 
power  of  melancholy.  There  are  from  day  to  day 
most  bitter  complaints  of  exceeding  vileness, 
ignorance,  and  corruption;  an  amazing  load  of 
guilt,  unworthiness  even  to  creep  on  God's  earth, 
everlasting  uselessness,  fitness  for  nothing,  etc.,  and 
sometimes  expressions  even  of  horror  at  the 
thoughts  of  ever  preaching  again.  But  yet  in  this 


274     CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE 

time  of  dejection  he  speaks  of  several  intervals 
of  divine  help  and  comfort." 

The  pitiful  thing  about  it  all  was  that  Brainerd's 
distress  arose  not  from  the  consciousness  of  any 
particular  shortcoming  of  his  own,  which  after 
all  was  finite.  He  was  endeavoring  to  realize  the 
meaning  of  that  infinite  guilt  which  was  his  as 
a  child  of  Adam.  That  guilt  must  be  infinite 
because  it  was  a  sin  against  infinite  purity  and 
power.  When  he  had  repented  to  the  very  ut 
most  of  his  ability,  he  was  conscious  that  he  had 
not  repented  enough. 

When  he  went  to  New  Jersey  as  a  missionary 
to  the  Indians,  it  was  this  abnormal  spiritual  sen 
sitiveness  which  he  endeavored  to  impart  to  the 
aboriginal  mind. 

He  found  it  difficult  to  bring  the  Indians  to  that 
degree  of  spiritual  anguish  which,  in  his  view, 
was  necessary  to  their  salvation.  He  could  make 
them  understand  the  meaning  of  actual  transgres 
sion,  but  they  were  dull  of  comprehension  when 
he  urged  them  to  repent  of  original  sin. 

"Another  difficulty,"  he  says,  "which  I  am 
now  upon,  is  that  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  bring 
them  to  a  rational  conviction  that  they  are  sin- 


CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE     275 

ners  by  nature,  and  that  their  hearts  are  corrupt 
and  sinful,  unless  one  can  charge  them  with  some 
gross  act  of  immorality  such  as  the  light  of  nature 
condemns." 

One  would  suppose  that  the  missionary  might 
have  found  among  his  untutored  Indians  enough 
actual  transgressions  to  have  brought  to  them  a 
conviction  of  sin  and  a  desire  for  a  better  life. 
But  no,  that  was  not  enough,  it  would  have  fallen 
far  short  of  what  he  had  in  mind.  It  would  have 
only  convinced  them  that  they  were  sinners  indi 
vidually  considered,  and  would  not  have  over 
whelmed  them  with  the  guilt  of  the  race.  So 
he  hit  upon  a  device  to  turn  their  minds  from 
the  incidental  trangressions  of  mature  life  to  the 
central  fact  that  depravity  was  innate  and  uni 
versal. 

"  The  method  which  I  take  to  convince  them 
that  we  are  sinners  by  nature  is  to  lead  them  to 
an  observation  of  their  little  children :  how  they 
will  appear  in  a  rage,  fight  and  strike  their  mothers 
before  they  are  able  to  speak  or  walk,  while  they 
are  so  young  that  they  are  incapable  of  learning 
such  practices.  .  .  .  As  children  have  never  learned 
these  things,  they  must  have  been  in  their  natures ; 


276     CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE 

and  consequently  they  must  be  allowed  to  be  by 
nature  the  children  of  wrath." 

It  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  Brainerd  that  in 
thus  setting  the  child  in  the  midst  of  them  as  an 
illustration  of  the  kingdom  of  wrath  he  was  not 
imitating  the  method  of  Jesus.  Even  in  his  treat 
ment  of  the  sins  of  later  life  there  is  something 
illustrative  of  the  cruel  system  which  dominated 
him. 

"  I  then  mention  all  the  vices  I  know  the  In 
dians  to  be  guilty  of,  and  so  make  use  of  these 
sinful  streams  to  convince  them  that  the  fountain 
is  corrupt.  This  is  the  end  for  which  I  mention 
their  wicked  practices  to  them ;  not  because  I 
expect  to  bring  them  to  an  effectual  reformation 
merely  by  inveighing  against  their  immoralities, 
but  hoping  that  they  may  hereby  be  convinced 
of  the  corruption  of  their  hearts,  and  awakened 
to  a  sense  of  the  depravity  and  misery  of  their 
fallen  state." 

Brainerd  had  in  mind  a  profound  truth  ;  every 
great  moral  awakening  is  accompanied  by  pain. 
But  he  was  not  content  with  that  which  comes 
naturally.  All  specific  reformation  in  morals  and 
manners  was  subordinated  to  that  which  he  con- 


CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE     277 

ceived  to  be  the  essential  thing, — that  they  should 
feel  to  its  full  extent  the  misery  of  being  human. 

In  every  readjustment  of  thought  or  advance 
in  the  manner  of  life  there  is  involved  a  vast 
amount  of  unescapable  pain.  There  is  also  a 
great  deal  of  pain  that  is  gratuitously  inflicted. 
In  the  contest  between  the  forces  of  conservatism 
and  progress  it  is  difficult  to  say  which  side  is 
more  open  to  the  charge  of  cruelty. 

In  reading  history  our  sympathies  are  usually 
with  the  bold  innovator.  He  stands  alone  against 
the  world  and  proclaims  an  unpopular  truth.  He 
is  misunderstood,  reviled,  persecuted  for  right 
eousness'  sake.  The  defenders  of  the  old  order 
are  hard-hearted  persecutors  who  hound  him  to 
death. 

But  this  is  only  half  the  story.  A  glimpse  of 
the  other  side  is  given  in  the  very  term  we  use. 
We  speak  of  the  defenders  of  the  old  order.  We 
only  understand  their  feelings  when  we  remem 
ber  that  they  were  really  on  the  defensive.  The 
things  they  held  most  sacred  were  attacked  by  a 
ruthless  power  which  they  could  not  understand. 
They  flew  to  the  rescue  of  sanctuaries  about  to 


27  8     CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE 

be  violated.  They  often  fought  as  those  in  mortal 
agony,  using  blindly  such  weapons  as  came  to 
their  hands. 

In  "  The  Faerie  Queene  "  Una,  the  fair  symbol 
of  Truth,  wanders  through  the  forest  protected 
by  her  lion.  He  is  a  good  lion  and  faithful 
to  his  lady. 

The  lyon  would  not  leave  her  desolate, 

But  with  her  went  along,  as  a  strong  gard 

Of  her  chast  person,  and  a  faythfull  mate 

Of  her  sad  troubles  and  misfortunes  hard : 

Still  when  she  slept,  he  kept  both  watch  and  ward  ; 

And  when  she  wakt,  he  wayted  diligent 

With  humble  service  to  her  will  prepard  ; 

From  her  fayre  eyes  he  took  commandement 

And  ever  by  her  lookes  conceived  her  intent. 

That  is  the  picture  that  comes  to  the  adherent 
of  the  old  order.  The  pure  virgin  Truth  walked 
unharmed,  with  her  strong  protector  by  her  side. 
At  length  a  proud  Paynim  attacked  the  gentle 
lady.  Then  it  was  that 

her  fiers  servant,  full  of  kingly  aw 
And  high  disdaine,  whenas  his  soveraine  Dame 
So  rudely  handled  by  her  foe  he  saw, 
With  gaping  jawes  full  greedy  at  him  came, 
And,  ramping  on  his  shield,  did  weene  the  same 
Have  reft  away  with  his  sharp  rending  clawes. 


CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE     279 

But  it  was  a  losing  battle.  The  lion's  sudden 
fierceness  was  all  in  vain. 

O  then,  too  weake  and  feeble  was  the  forse    , 
Of  salvage  beast. 

Now  that  her  defender  is  slain,  what  is  to  be 
come  of  Lady  Truth  *? 

Who  now  is  left  to  keepe  the  forlorn  maid 
From  raging  spoile  of  lawless  victor's  will  ? 

The  lover  of  the  old  order  does  not  stop  to  ask 
whether  the  lion  may  not  have  made  a  mistake, 
and  whether  the  object  of  his  attack  may  not 
have  been,  instead  of  a  proud  Paynim,  only  a 
Christian  knight  who  had  approached  to  ask  his 
way.  Nor  does  he  feel  pity  for  the  pains  inflicted 
by  the  lion's  "  sharp  rending  clawes."  He  only 
cries,  "  Poor  lion  !  Poor  Lady  Truth  !  " 

"  But,"  says  the  careful  reader,  "  are  you  not 
getting  away  from  your  subject*?  You  proposed 
the  question,  '  Why  are  good  people  so  cruel  *?  ' 
You  began  with  the  conversation  of  excellent 
ladies  in  the  drawing-room,  and  now  you  have 
wandered  off  into  faery  land,  and  are  talking 
about  the  Lady  Truth  and  the  noble  lion  who 
died  in  her  defense.  I  fear  you  are  losing  your 
way." 


280     CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE 

On  the  contrary,  dear  reader,  I  think,  as  the 
children  say  when  they  are  hunting  the  thimble, 
we  are  "  getting  warm."  We  started  out  to  find 
a  cause  for  the  obliviousness  of  good  people  to 
the  pain  which  they  inflict  on  others,  and  we  have 
come  into  the  region  of  allegory.  Now,  one  of 
the  chief  reasons  why  good  people  are  cruel  is 
that  it  is  so  easy  for  them  to  allegorize. 

In  an  allegory  virtues  and  vices  are  personified. 
Each  is  complete  in  itself,  and  when  it  once  has 
been  set  going  it  follows  a  preordained  course.  It 
does  not  grow  into  something  else,  and  it  is  in 
capable  of  repentance  or  improvement.  In  the 
morality  plays  a  virtue  is  as  virtuous  and  a  vice 
as  vicious  at  the  beginning  as  at  the  end.  Spenser 
prefixes  to  "  The  Faerie  Queene  "  a  prose  explan 
ation  of  the  meaning  of  each  important  character. 
"  The  first  of  the  Knight  of  the  Red-crosse,  in 
whom  I  set  forth  Holynes;  the  second  of  Sir 
Guyon,  in  whome  I  sette  forth  Temperance ;  the 
third  of  Britomartis,  a  lady  knight,  in  whom  I 
picture  Chastity."  Now,  after  this  explanation  we 
are  relieved  of  all  those  anxieties  which  beset  us 
when  we  watch  creatures  of  flesh  and  blood  set 
ting  out  in  the  world  to  try  their  souls.  Every- 


CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE     281 

thing  is  as  much  a  matter  of  invariable  law  as  the 
reactions  of  chemical  elements.  The  Knight  of 
the  Red-cross  may  appear  to  be  tempted,  but  he 
is  really  immune.  He  cannot  fall  from  grace. 
From  that  disaster  he  is  protected  by  the  defini 
tion.  We  have  only  to  learn  what  the  word  holi 
ness  means  to  know  what  he  will  do.  As  for  Sir 
Guyon,  when  once  we  learn  that  he  is  Temper 
ance,  we  would  trust  him  anywhere.  For  such 
characters  there  is  nothing  possible  but  ultimate 
triumph  over  their  foes.  And  what  of  their  foes  ? 
Being  allegorical  characters,  they  cannot  be  re 
formed.  There  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  kill  them 
without  compunction,  or  if  we  can  catch  them 
in  the  traps  which  they  have  set  for  others,  and 
make  them  suffer  the  torments  they  have  them 
selves  invented,  so  much  the  better.  We  welcome 
the  knight  — 

Who  slayes  the  Gyaunt,  wounds  the  Beast, 
And  strips  Duessa  quight. 

We  have  no  compunctions  as  we  watch  the  ad 
ministration  of  poetical  justice.  Whatever  hap 
pens  to  the  false  Duessa  and  to  such  miscreants 
as  Sansfoy  and  Sansjoy  and  Sansloy,  we  say  that 
it  serves  them  right. 


282     CRUELTY   OF  GOOD   PEOPLE 

If  we  can  only  hold  fast  to  the  allegorical  clue, 
and  be  assured  that  he  is  dealing  with  sins  and 
not  with  persons,  we  can  follow  Dante  through 
purgatory  without  flinching.  The  moral  always 
is  a  good  one,  and  full  of  suggestiveness. 

But  the  moment  we  mistake  an  allegorical 
character  for  a  person  of  flesh  and  blood  we 
get  into  trouble.  Even  the  most  perfect  parable 
represents  only  a  certain  phase  of  reality.  When 
it  is  forced  beyond  its  real  intention  and  taken 
literally  it  shocks  our  sense  of  humanity.  It  needs 
to  be  interpreted  by  the  same  wise  spirit  that  con 
ceived  it.  We  repeat  the  story  of  the  symbolic 
virgins  who  had  forgotten  to  put  oil  in  their 
lamps,  or  of  the  servant  who  was  too  timid  to  put 
his  master's  money  out  to  usury.  The  child  asks, 
"  Was  n't  it  cruel  of  those  wise  virgins  not  to  give 
the  others  just  a  little  of  their  oil  ?  And  after  the 
door  was  shut  and  the  foolish  virgins  knew  how 
foolish  they  were  and  were  sorry,  could  n't  the 
people  inside  have  opened  the  door  just  a  little 
bit  ?  And  just  because  the  servant  was  afraid  to 
go  to  the  bank  with  the  money,  because  it  was  so 
little,  ought  the  master  to  have  been  so  hard  with 
him  as  to  say,  'Cast  ye  the  unprofitable  servant 


CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE     283 

into  the  outer  darkness ;  there  shall  be  weeping 
and  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth? '  Why  did  n't 
he  give  him  another  chance  ?  " 

Then  the  parent  will  explain  that  these  are 
symbolic  characters.  Or  perhaps  he  may  not  try 
to  explain,  but  change  the  subject  and  read  a 
story  of  real  people  like  that  of  the  prodigal  son 
or  the  good  Samaritan.  The  child  may  be  made 
to  understand  that  while  the  door  is  always  shut 
against  a  sin,  it  is  always  open  for  the  sinner  who 
repents. 

The  sensitive  child  takes  up  the  "  Pilgrim's  Pro 
gress  "  and  reads  of  the  way  Christian  went  on  his 
way  to  the  heavenly  city,  meeting  all  kinds  of 
people,  yet  apparently  without  sympathy  for  most 
of  them.  "Why  did  he  leave  his  wife  and  little 
children  in  the  City  of  Destruction  and  go  off 
alone  ?  If  he  knew  that  the  city  was  to  be  burned 
up,  why  did  n't  he  stay  with  them  ?  He  does  n't 
seem  to  care  very  much  for  what  happens  to 
people  who  are  not  of  his  set."  So  it  seems  to  be. 
Mr.  Hold-the-world,  Mr.  Money-love,  and  Mr. 
Save-all  walk  along  with  him,  and  then  they  go 
off  the  path  to  look  into  a  silver-mine.  Christian 
doesn't  take  the  trouble  to  find  out  what  became 


284     CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE 

of  them.  Bunyan  says  coolly,  "  Whether  they  fell 
into  the  pit  by  looking  over  the  brink  or  whether 
they  went  down  to  dig,  or  whether  they  were 
smothered  by  the  damps  that  commonly  arise, 
of  these  things  I  am  not  certain ;  but  this  I  ob 
served,  that  they  were  never  seen  that  way  again." 
Christian  goes  on  after  the  tragedy  perfectly  un 
concerned,  singing  a  cheerful  hymn.  It  was  none 
of  his  business  what  happened  to  those  who 
wandered  off  the  road.  He  is  rather  pleased  than 
otherwise  when  Vain-Confidence  falls  into  the  pit. 
When  "  the  brisk  young  lad,"  Ignorance,  joins 
him  Christian  converses  with  him  only  long 
enough  to  find  out  his  name  and  where  he  came 
from.  Then  instead  of  trying  to  improve  him  he 
leaves  him  behind.  Poor  Ignorance  trudges  after, 
but  he  never  can  catch  up. 

All  this  is  right  in  an  allegory.  Ignorance  must 
be  left  behind,  Vain-Confidence  must  perish  in  the 
pit ;  from  the  City  of  Destruction  we  must  flee 
without  waiting  for  others  to  follow.  This  is  a 
very  simple  lesson  in  the  way  of  life.  The  next 
lesson  is  more  difficult  and  it  is  quite  different,  — 
how  to  treat  ignorant  and  vainglorious  and  other 
wise  imperfect  persons. 


CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE     285 

The  first  thing  we  have  to  remember  is  that 
they  are  persons,  and  that  persons  are  quite  dif 
ferent  from  allegorical  characters.  Persons  can 
change  their  minds,  they  can  repent  and  aspire 
after  a  better  life,  and  above  all  they  have  feelings, 
—  which  abstract  virtues  and  vices  do  not  have. 
Does  not  the  cruelty  of  the  good  chiefly  arise 
from  the  fact  that  they  do  not  see  all  this  *? 

In  a  preceding  essay  we  have  considered 
Hawthorne's  judgment  on  the  characters  which 
he  himself  created.  His  most  powerful  story  of 
sin  and  retribution  wears  to  his  eyes  "  a  stern  and 
sombre  aspect  too  much  ungladdened  by  the 
tender  and  familiar  influences  which  soften  almost 
every  scene  of  Nature  and  real  life."  He  was 
aware  that  he  was  depicting  not  all  of  life,  but 
only  one  aspect  of  it.  He  saw  the  characters  of 
the  "  Scarlet  Letter,"  as  they  saw  themselves,  "  in  a 
kind  of  typical  illusion."  He  was  fully  aware  that 
his  treatment  was  symbolic  rather  than  realistic. 
Real  life  is  infinitely  more  complex  and  therefore 
more  full  of  possibilities  of  good  than  any  sym 
bolic  representation  of  it. 

I  do  not  think  that  good  people  are  really  as 
cruel  at  heart  as  one  would  be  led  to  think  from 


286     CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE 

their  words,  or  even  from  their  acts.  I  remember 
a  good  professor  of  theology  who  was  discoursing 
on  the  way  in  which  the  Canaanites  were  destroyed 
in  order  that  Israel  might  possess  the  land. 

"  Professor,"  asked  a  literal-minded  student, 
"  why  did  the  Lord  create  the  Canaanites,  any 
how  ?  " 

"  The  Lord  created  the  Canaanites,"  answered 
the  professor,  "  in  order  that  Israel  might  have 
something  on  which  to  whet  his  sword." 

The  words  were  bloodthirsty  enough ;  and  yet 
had  I  been  a  Canaanite  in  distress  I  should  have 
made  my  way  at  once  to  the  good  professor's 
house.  I  am  sure  that  the  moment  he  saw  me  he 
would  have  taken  me  in  and  ministered  tenderly 
to  my  distresses  and  protected  me  from  an  un 
kindly  world.  But  I  should  have  taken  the  pre 
caution  to  let  him  see  me  before  he  learned  my 
name.  A  Canaanite  in  the  abstract  would  be  an 
abomination  to  him,  and  I  would  have  to  take 
pains  to  make  him  understand  that  I  was  a  hu 
man  being. 

The  word  "  cruel "  is  in  its  derivation  akin  to 
"  crude ;  "  it  is  that  which  is  raw  and  unripe.  Like 
all  other  good  things,  righteousness  at  first  is 


CRUELTY   OF   GOOD   PEOPLE     287 

crude.  Crude  righteousness  takes  no  account  of 
the  difference  between  a  sinner  and  his  sin;  it 
hates  both  alike  with  a  bitter  hatred,  and  visits 
on  each  the  same  condemnation.  It  is  harsh  and 
bitter.  For  all  that  it  is  a  good  thing,  this  unripe 
fruit  of  righteousness.  Give  it  time  and  sunshine, 
and  it  will  grow  sweet  and  mellow. 


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